Deposition and tribology of carbon and boron nitride nanoperiod multilayer solid lubricating films

The solid lubricating properties of nanoperiod multilayer (C/BN)n films are discussed in this article. Nanoperiod multilayer films composed of carbon and boron nitride layers, which have a structure expected to provide solid lubrication such as the h-BN and graphite structures were deposited, and their nanoindentation and tribological properties were evaluated. The nanoindentation hardness and modulus of dissipation of the nanoperiod multilayer (C/BN)n films change with the layer period. The coating deposited at a 4-nm layer period shows the highest hardness. Tribological properties of the coatings were investigated by ball-on-disk tribotesting, the result indicated that the 4-nm-period coating has the lowest friction coefficient compared with the other coatings deposited in this study. The results of the dependence of friction coefficient on the number of sliding cycle and temperature show that the mechanical and tribological properties of the multilayer (C/BN)n films can be significantly improved compared with those of single C and BN layers.