TRIBOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF POLISHED DIAMOND FILMS

Despite the rapid progress being made in the synthesis of diamond film s and recent interest in polishing of diamond films, no systematic mea surements of friction and wear on polished diamond films have been rep orted. In the present study, chemomechanical and laser polishing techn iques are used, and friction and wear data on the chemomechanically po lished diamond films are presented. With the chemomechanical polishing technique used in this study, the rms roughness of hot filament chemi cal vapor deposited diamond films can be reduced from about 657 to abo ut 170 nm with rounding off of sharp asperities with no change in the diamond structure. The polished films exhibit coefficient of friction (approximately 0.1) and wear rates much lower than that of unpolished films. Friction and wear properties of the polished films are comparab le to that of single-crystal natural diamond. Based on this study, it is concluded that polished films are potential candidates for tribolog ical applications.