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A Comparative Study on the Anti-Friction Performance of Amorphous Silicon Films Enhanced by WS2 Nanoflakes

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Abstract

Silicon has been irreplaceable for a long time due to its well-estiblished design and fabrication in the field of Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS). However, it has poor tribological properties, which limits the further application of actuators (with relative motion) based MEMS. First, the amorphous silicon (a-Si) coatings were prepared on silicon substrates and high-speed steel (HSS) substrates by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition, and the relationships between mechanical properties and tribological performance were also systematically discussed. The wear rate of a-Si film on HSS has decreased significantly (decreased by 81.55%) compared with a-Si coating on silicon, which can be attributed to the larger elastic modulus and hardness of a-Si on the HSS matrix. Then, tungsten disulfide (WS2) nanoflake coatings with low interlayer shear stress were successfully prepared on the amorphous silicon (a-Si) coatings by the drop-casting method, forming a WS2 + a-Si coating to enhance the tribological properties. Combined with first-principles simulations and the characterization of the wear scar morphology, the macro-scale sliding friction of this composite coating against the Al2O3 ceramic ball was investigated in ambient air. The results indicated that the introduction of WS2 nanoflakes reduces the coefficient of friction (CoF) from 0.5 to 0.08. The reduction in CoF could be attributed to the in-situ formation of WS2 lubricating transfer film on the wear scar of the ball and the WS2 heterogeneous interface on a-Si film, leading to asymmetric contact between the friction pairs, which in turn triggers low and stable friction.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the financial support from Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (51675409), the National Science and Technology Major Project (j2019-IV-0004-0071), the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing, China (cstc2019jcyj-msxmX0577), and Natural Science Basic Research Plan in Shaanxi Province of China (2022JM-251).

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51675409), the National Science and Technology Major Project (j2019-IV-0004-0071), the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing, China (cstc2019jcyj-msxmX0577), and Natural Science Basic Research Plan in Shaanxi Province of China (2022JM-251).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Education Ministry for Modern Design and Rotor-Bearing System, **’an Jiaotong University, 710049, **’an, China

    Qunfeng Zeng, Zekun Ning, Jianing Zhu, Zhao Wang & Zeming Pang

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  1. Qunfeng Zeng
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Qunfeng Zeng: Methodology, Visualization, Writing-review. Zekun Ning: Methodology, Analyzed data, Writing-original draft. Jianing Zhu: Simualtion, Investigation. Zhao Wang: Investigation, Visualization. Zeming Pang: Investigation, Visualization. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Qunfeng Zeng.

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The initial morphology of the friction pair material; The primative unit cell (WS2, Fe and a-Si); EDS spectrum of a-Si film. (DOCX 1.19 MB )

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Zeng, Q., Ning, Z., Zhu, J. et al. A Comparative Study on the Anti-Friction Performance of Amorphous Silicon Films Enhanced by WS2 Nanoflakes. Silicon 15, 1291–1302 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-022-02110-x

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