Self-assembly of ceria/graphene oxide composite films with ultra-long antiwear lifetime under a high applied load

In this work, we report a simple self-assembly way to prepare ceria/graphene oxide (CeO2/GO) composite films on silicon (Si) substrates, which exhibit significant enhancement on tribological performances compared with Si substrates and GO films. Specifically, the friction coefficient is reduced drastically to the one-third of that of Si substrates. What’s more, the antiwear lifetime is markedly prolonged to ∼8 h under a high applied load of 2 N, which is over seven times longer than that of GO films. It is expected that the CeO2/GO composite films may find wide applications in nano/microelectromechanical systems as high-performance solid lubricating films, due to their facile and low cost preparation, nano-scale thickness, lower friction coefficient and desired antiwear lifetime.