Adhesion And Composite Micro-Hardness Of DLC And Si-DLC Films Deposited On Nitrile Rubber

Thin films of hydrogenated diamond-like carbon (DLC) and silicon (Si) doped diamond-like carbon (Si-DLC) have been deposited on acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) using a closed field unbalanced magnetron sputtering ion plating system. A sputter cleaning process was integrated into the deposition process so as to reduce the likelihood of re-contamination between the cleaning and deposition stages. The deposited coatings showed excellent adherence with an adhesion rating of 4 A for films with a Si-C interlayer. The composite micro-hardness was highest for DLC films at 15.5 GPa for indentation load of 147.1 mN using a Vickers microhardness tester. Tribological tests undertaken under normal load of 5 N using a pin-on-disc tribometer for all of the samples of DLC and Si-DLC films, with and without Si-C interlayer, show a friction increase between 0.25 and 0.4 to between 0.45 and 0.6. This friction increase has been related to the micro-hardness of the films.

Keywords

Adhesion; Closed field unbalanced magnetron; sputtering ion plating; DLC; Micro-hardness; Si-DLC; Tribology

Citation

Lubwama, M., Corcoran, B., Sayers, K., Kirabira, J. B., Sebbit, A., McDonnell, K. A., & Dowling, D. (2012). Adhesion and composite micro-hardness of DLC and Si-DLC films deposited on nitrile rubber. Surface and Coatings Technology, 206(23), 4881-4886. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfcoat.2012.05.079

URI

https://nru.uncst.go.ug/xmlui/handle/123456789/1318

Collections

Engineering and Technology

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