Fluorine easily substitutes hydrogen in DLC films due to its monovalence and high electronegativity. The peculiarities of fluorine bestow low surface energy, low inner stress, good thermal stability, preeminent tribological properties and biocompatibility on fluorine-containing, diamond-like carbon (F-DLC) films.Although there are some reviews that introduce the important advances in DLC films, they are not particularly focused on the promising F-DLC films. In this review, we mainly concentrate on the mechanical and tribological properties of F-DLC films. The mechanical properties, including hardness, modulus, and inner stress, will be discussed thoroughly. More importantly, the eminent tribological properties of F-DLC films would be emphasized based on the surface passivation and repulsive forces induced by fluorine atoms from the surface chemical and micro-mechanical viewpoints. Finally, some existing challenges and promising breakthroughs about F-DLC films are also proposed. It is expected that these films would be produced on a large scale and applied extensively in industrial applications such as micro-electro-mechanical systems, ultralarge scale integrated circuits, thin film transistor liquid crystal displays and biomedical devices.
Surface energy is essential to the friction properties of materials, but until now the investigating scope for DLC films has still been narrow. In this paper, we try to expand the surface energy scope of DLC films to their limits by surface modification and study their influence on friction properties. In this case, we not only control the surface energy of DLC films but also manipulate that of the counter balls, by using piranha etching and octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) modification. The surface compositions, wettabilities and friction properties of DLC films and counter balls were investigated. The results indicate that the surface energies of DLC films and counter balls can be adjusted successfully in the ranges of 31.2 to 73.73 mJ m À2 and 15.69 to 72.93 mJ m À2 , respectively. The frictional tests show that all the as-modified DLC films retain relatively stable friction curves, which derive from their good load-carrying and wearresistance capabilities. Specifically, the DLC-OH covered with vast oxygen-containing groups shows poor frictional properties, owing to its high surface energy and strong adhesion. In contrast, the DLC-OTS exhibits amazing friction reduction properties, due to its ultra-low surface energy and special film structure.
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