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CVD-diamond nanoparticle synthesis for DLC film application

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Abstract

Diamond-like carbon (DLC) films have been extensively applied as a solid lubricant and as a protective coating due to their attractive chemical, mechanical, and tribological properties. Furthermore, these properties of DLC coatings can be improved with the incorporation of nanoparticles of different materials, especially diamond nanoparticles (DNPs). Herein, the incorporation of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) DNPs was done from a deionized aqueous colloidal solution by using a controlled pulsed valve, which is an innovative aspect of this work. The CVD DNPs were pulverized into the plasma region and incorporated in the DLC films bulk with controllable size particle distribution and density. In addition, an enhanced process to obtain DNPs with suitable size distribution was established by using a high energy ball milling technique, centrifugation, and a special chemical cleaning process. The DLC films were deposited on a metallic substrate via a modified, pulsed DC plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technique, with an additional cathode. X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) techniques showed that an aqueous colloidal solution of high-purity DNPs with a mean diameter of 32 nm was obtained. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) results showed that it is possible to control particle size distribution by varying the milling and centrifugation time lengths. Therefore, a valuable result was that DLC films could be deposited with DNPs by using clean water without affecting deposition rate, the adhesion between the DLC films and substrates, the structural quality of the film, and keeping lower coefficient of friction.

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Acknowledgments

The authors want to acknowledge Drs. Walter Toshi, Gislene Martins, and André Marcondes for helping on some characterization.

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Funding

This research was funded by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo-FAPESP (grant numbers 2017/01697-6, 2017/08899-3, and 2012/15857-1), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de nível superior (Capes);

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Correspondence to Rebeca Falcão Borja de Oliveira Correia.

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de Oliveira Correia, R.F.B., Wachesk, C.C., Hurtado, C.R. et al. CVD-diamond nanoparticle synthesis for DLC film application. J Nanopart Res 22, 293 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-020-05018-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-020-05018-y

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