Tribology of Diamond-Like Carbon Films: Recent Progress and Future Trends

A special issue of Lubricants (ISSN 2075-4442).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2025 | Viewed by 1849

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Extreme Environmental Coatings, Korea Institute of Materials Science, Changwon 51508, Republic of Korea
Interests: coating tribology; DLC coating; ta-C coating; hard and functional coating; filtered cathodic arc sources; plasma coating process

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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gachon University, Seongnam 13120, Republic of Korea
Interests: two-body abrasion; three-body abrasion; erosion; wear; corrosion

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Extreme Environmental Coatings, Korea Institute of Materials Science, Changwon 51508, Republic of Korea
Interests: tribochemistry; oxidational wear; superlubricity; carbon-based coating
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We welcome submissions on the “Tribology of Diamond-Like Carbon Films: Recent Progress and Future Trends”. From a tribological perspective, DLC has been used to boost the energy efficiency of fossil fuel vehicles for several decades. Recently, the demand for green energy has been rapidly increasing along with the phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles, and tribological solutions need to be provided in various environments (e.g., ablation, acid–base corrosion, electro-corrosion, ultra-high vacuum, elevated and cryogenic temperatures). Here, we hope to explore the unprecedented properties of DLC, including its tribological performance, as well as its future applications. In this issue, we cover evaluation and coating processes for structurally and elementally modified DLC and seek insights into future R&D directions to suit the changing environment. Topics of particular interest in this Special Issue include the following:

- Novel processes of DLC deposition;

- Structurally or elementally controlled DLC coating;

- Future applications of DLC coating (e.g., corrosion, ablation, high temperature, low temperature, optics, semiconductor, etc.).

Prof. Dr. Jongkuk Kim
Dr. Kyoungjun Lee
Dr. Jae-Il Kim
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • diamond-like carbon (DLC)
  • coating system
  • tribo-corrosion
  • elementally modified DLC
  • structurally controlled DLC
  • functional durable coating
  • future application

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 11906 KiB  
Article
Effects of Substrate Pulse Bias on Corrosion Behavior of Tetrahedral Amorphous Carbon Thin Films in Acidic and Chloride Solutions
by Nay Win Khun and Adrian Wei-Yee Tan
Lubricants 2025, 13(4), 141; https://doi.org/10.3390/lubricants13040141 - 25 Mar 2025
Viewed by 210
Abstract
Filtered cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA) deposition technology was applied to prepare tetrahedral amorphous carbon (taC) thin films with different substrate pulse biases. Their structure, adhesion strength, and corrosion behavior in 5 × 10−2 M hydrochloric (HCl), sodium chloride (NaCl), calcium chloride (CaCl [...] Read more.
Filtered cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA) deposition technology was applied to prepare tetrahedral amorphous carbon (taC) thin films with different substrate pulse biases. Their structure, adhesion strength, and corrosion behavior in 5 × 10−2 M hydrochloric (HCl), sodium chloride (NaCl), calcium chloride (CaCl2), lead (II) chloride (PbCl2), and mercury (II) chloride (HgCl2) solutions were studied with respect to the substrate pulse bias. Increasing the substrate pulse bias from 0 to 1000 V increased the graphitization of the taC thin films and thereby resulted in a 9.9% increase in their adhesion strength from 406 mN to 446 mN. The taC thin films exhibited the lowest (8.48 × 104 Ω to 11.55 × 104 Ω) and highest (146.89 × 104 Ω to 387.44 × 104 Ω) corrosion resistance in the PbCl2 and HgCl2 solutions, respectively, while they had higher corrosion in the HCl (62.07 × 104 Ω to 131.73 × 104 Ω) solution than in both the NaCl (143 × 104 Ω to 231.31 × 104 Ω) and CaCl2 (102.13 × 104 Ω to 351.92 × 104 Ω) solutions. Nevertheless, the taC thin films with higher substrate pulse biases had lower corrosion resistance in all the solutions used in this study. The substrate pulse bias emerged as a significant parameter in the FCVA deposition process, playing a crucial role in influencing the structure, adhesion strength, and corrosion resistance of taC thin films. Full article
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16 pages, 8061 KiB  
Article
Tribological Properties of Multilayer DLC/MoS2 Nanocomposite Coatings on Microtextured Titanium Alloy Surfaces
by Ke Liu, Qingqing Ding, Hao Peng, Kang Guan, Xiaowan Xi, Ning Kong and Maolin Liao
Lubricants 2024, 12(11), 374; https://doi.org/10.3390/lubricants12110374 - 29 Oct 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1186
Abstract
Single surface texture or coating technology is gradually unable to produce lasting lubrication of a TC4 titanium alloy in a harsh environment. In order to address this problem, a rectangular microstructure is prepared on the surface of a TC4 titanium alloy by laser [...] Read more.
Single surface texture or coating technology is gradually unable to produce lasting lubrication of a TC4 titanium alloy in a harsh environment. In order to address this problem, a rectangular microstructure is prepared on the surface of a TC4 titanium alloy by laser processing, and then MoS2/DLC composite interlayer nanocoatings are prepared on the surface by non-equilibrium magnetron sputtering. Friction and wear tests are then carried out on single fabricated, coated and fabricated coatings. The results show that the MoS2/DLC composite interlayered nanocoating can effectively combine with the texture to achieve better friction reduction compared with the single texture and coating. The textured composite coating has the lowest friction coefficient (reduced from 0.4122 to 0.0978) and wear. Through controlled experiments, the textured coating showed good tribological properties at different temperatures and in different friction cycle tests. This study can effectively improve the tribological properties of metal materials through composite coatings, providing research ideas for enhancing the service life of alloys under long-term friction in high-temperature environments. Full article
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