Wear performance of tetrahedral amorphous carbon films prepared by filtered cathodic vacuum arc technique

Tetrahedral amorphous carbon films have been widely recognized as being wear-resistant coatings with a low friction coefficient, but their tribological behavior strongly depends on the tribotesting conditions and the nature of the coating, which depends on the technique used for film deposition. In this paper the structure, mechanical properties and wear resistance of the tetrahedral amorphous carbon films deposited on silicon, W18Cr4V high-speed steel and Cr18Ni9 stainless steel substrates by pulsed filtered catholic vacuum arc system have been investigated. The wear test results show: the tetrahedral amorphous carbon films have wear coefficient of 0.14–0.20 and wear rate of 5.833×10−9 mm3/N m for an applied load of 5 N and 6000 cycles against sapphire ball. The effects of substrate, applied load, frequency and film thickness on coefficient of friction have been studied.