Abstract
Under high temperature conditions, the crystal WS2 is easily oxidized to WO3, which has a great impact on the tribological properties of WS2 solid lubrication films. In order to improve the tribological properties of WS2 solid lubricating films at high temperatures, the co-doped La-Ti/WS2 composite films were prepared by unbalanced magnetron sputtering. The effects of target power on the structure and tribological properties of La-Ti/WS2 composite films were studied. The micromorphology, composition, mechanical properties and microstructure of the films were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), nano indentation and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The high temperature tribological properties of composite films were researched by high temperature friction tester. The results show that La-Ti/WS2 composite films show excellent tribological properties when the target power is 20 W at high temperature. At this time, the H/E value of the composite film is the largest, the friction coefficient is the smallest with the average value of 0.012, and the wear rate is the lowest, which is 1.56×1
With the rapid development of aerospace technology, bearings, as important rotating parts in aircrafts, often work under extreme conditions such as high/low temperature or high load. In order to solve the problem of bearing lubrication under these extreme conditions, solid lubrication technology has come into being. Transition metal sulfides (WS2 or MoS2) have hexagonal layered crystal structure and weak van der Waals force between layers, because of low interlaminar shear force, so it is easy to slide when friction behavior occurs, and has excellent lubrication performance, and thus it has been widely used in the field of aerospac
In order to overcome the shortcomings of WS2 solid lubrication film and to improve the bearing capacity of WS2 solid lubrication film, scholars have done a lot of research on the preparation of composite films doped with different elements. These works show that the microstructure and mechanical properties of WS2 films can be improved by doping metal and non-metallic elements into WS2 film
Rare earth elements have special electronic structure and super chemical activity. It is found that doping an appropriate amount of rare earth elements or rare earth compounds in the hard film can strengthen the fine crystal and significantly improve the microstructure of the fil
Previous studies have shown that the process parameters have a great influence on the mechanical and tribological properties of both hard and lubricating films prepared by magnetron sputterin
In this study, La-Ti/WS2 composite films with an appropriate doping amount of La and Ti were deposited by unbalanced magnetron sputtering. The effects of target sputtering power on the structure and high temperature tribological properties of the composite films in atmospheric environment were studied. The microstructure, morphology, mechanical and tribological properties of the composite films were analyzed, and the reasons for the good tribological properties of rare earth doped WS2 composite films at high temperature were discussed.
In this study, La-Ti/WS2 composite films were deposited onto stainless steel and monocrystalline silicon by JGP045CA unbalanced magnetron sputtering system from Shenyang Scientific Instrument Company. WS2 target (purity 99.99%) was installed in RF target, La-Ti alloy target (purity 99.99%) with atomic ratio of 1:1 and Ti target (purity 99.99%) were installed in two DC targets, and the target size was Ф50.8 mm×3 mm. Mono-crystalline silicon and stainless steel were used to test the mechanical and tribological properties of the films, respectively. In order to improve the adhesion between the film and the substrate, the substrate was pretreated and deposited with an interlayer. In the deposition process, the worktable rotates between three targets at the speed of 20 r/min. For La-Ti/WS2 composite film, WS2 target and metal targets were used at the same time. Background vacuum was 5×1
The surface and cross-section morphology of La-Ti/WS2 composite films were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM, Sigma300, ZEISS), and the composition of the films was determined by energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). The crystal structure of the films was analyzed by X-ray diffractometer (XRD, SmartLab X, Rigaku, Japan) with a Cu Kα radiation and the scanning range was 10°–90°.
The hardness and elastic modulus of La-Ti/WS2 composite films were analyzed by the nano-indentation (iNano, Nanome-chanics, USA) with a diamond Berkovich indenter tip on the monocrystalline silicon. The maximum indentation depth was set to be no more than 1/10 of the film thickness. The indenta-tions of each composite films were measured five times and the average value was calculated to reduce the test error.
The chemical composition of wear marks and transfer films was tested by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS, Escalab 250xi, Thermofischer). The vacuum degree of the analysis chamber was 4×l
The tribological performance of La-Ti/WS2 composite films under atmosphere environment was tested on tribometer (HT-1000, Lanzhou Zhongke Kaihua Technology Development Co., Ltd). Friction tests were performed at 500 °C under a con-stant load of 1 N, the circular sliding friction under dry fric-tion was applied at 6 Hz, and the rotation radius was 2 mm. The counterpart was a GCr15steel ball with a diameter of 6 mm, a hardness of 6 GPa and a surface roughness of 0.1 μm. The grinding time was 8 min. After friction test, the profile of wear marks of La-Ti/WS2 composite films was measured by white light interference three-dimensional profilometer, and the wear volume of each wear mark was calculated for three times to obtain the average value. The wear rate (W) was cal-culated from their wear volumes using the following formula:
(1) |
where V is the wear volume (m
The SEM images of surface morphology and cross-section morphology of the composite films are shown in

Fig.1 Surface morphologies of La-Ti/WS2 composite films with different target powers: (a) 0 W, (b) 10 W, (c) 20 W, (d) 30 W, (e) 40 W, and (f) 50 W

Fig.2 Cross-sectional morphologies of La-Ti/WS2 composite films with different target powers: (a) 0 W, (b) 10 W, (c) 20 W, (d) 30 W, (e) 40 W, and (f) 50 W
XRD patterns of composite films with different target powers are shown in

Fig.3 XRD patterns of La-Ti/WS2 composite films with different target powers
Comparing the XRD curves of different La-Ti power composite films, it can be seen that the films have a dominant orientation after La-Ti doping. When the target power is 0 and 10 W, the (100) crystal orientation peak is the strongest, indicating that there is a preferred orientation in the growth process of the films. When the target power is further increased, the (100) diffraction peak gradually weakens, and WS2 in the films are mainly arranged in the way that the (002) base plane is parallel to the substrate. With the increase in La-Ti power, the diffraction peak of WS2 (002) is continuously widened, which reflects that the particle size of the film is continuously reduced. Therefore, due to the doped La-Ti, the long-range ordered arrangement of WS2 molecules is effectively blocked, resulting in microcrystallization of the film, which is conducive to improving the wear resistance and oxidation resistance of the fil
The composition of La-Ti/WS2 composite films is analyzed by EDS, as shown in
La-Ti power/W | 0 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
W content/at% | 30.42 | 31.29 | 35.01 | 34.8 | 33.22 | 32.17 |
S content/at% | 62.48 | 57.83 | 50.41 | 50.58 | 50.71 | 52.56 |
La content/at% | - | 3.22 | 6.29 | 5.77 | 7.4 | 5.65 |
Ti content/at% | - | 2.16 | 3.49 | 4.25 | 4.57 | 5.82 |
O content/at% | 7.1 | 5.5 | 4.8 | 4.6 | 4.1 | 3.8 |
S/W ratio | 2.05 | 1.84 | 1.44 | 1.45 | 1.52 | 1.63 |

Fig.4 Hardness and elastic modulus of La-Ti/WS2 composite films with different target powers
La-Ti power/W | 0 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
H/E | 0.01 | 0.011 | 0.086 | 0.083 | 0.072 | 0.074 |
The friction coefficient curves of composite films with different La-Ti target powers are illustrated in

Fig.5 Friction coefficient curves of La-Ti/WS2 composite films with different powers

Fig.6 Wear rate of La-Ti/WS2 composite films with different target powers
In order to study the wear mechanism of composite films at high temperature, the wear marks and spots of composite films are observed. The wear marks and wear spots of La-Ti/WS2 composite film after high temperature friction test are presented in

Fig.7 Wear marks of La-Ti/WS2 composite films with different target powers: (a) 0 W, (b) 10 W, (c) 20 W, (d) 30 W, (e) 40 W, and (f) 50 W

Fig.8 Wear spots of La-Ti/WS2 composite films with different target powers: (a) 0 W, (b) 10 W, (c) 20 W, (d) 30 W, (e) 40 W, and (f) 50 W
It can be seen from
In order to deeply understand the differences of high temperature friction experiments of composite films with different La-Ti target powers, the composition of the transfer film was analyzed by EDS. The EDS analysis results of wear spots of La-Ti/WS2 composite films after high temperature friction test are shown in

Fig.9 SEM images (a–c) and EDS mappings (d–p) of wear spots of La-Ti/WS2 composite films at different target powers
In order to further confirm the composition of the transfer film, the wear spots of the composite films after the high-temperature friction test were analyzed by XPS. Since no obvious transfer elements of Ti and La are found in the grinding balls at 30, 40 and 50 W, 10 W is selected as a comparison. The XPS spectra of the wear spots of the composite films at 10 and 20 W are shown in

Fig.10 XPS spectra of La-Ti/WS2 composite films with different elements of W (a, b), S (c, d), and La (e, f) at 10 W and 20 W
1) With the doping of La and Ti, the microstructure of WS2 film is improved, and the density of La-Ti/WS2 composite films is obviously enhanced. Its hardness and elastic modulus are gradually increased, and the H/E value first increases and then decreases.
2) Although WS2 will be destroyed at high temperatures to form WO3 which is not conducive to lubrication, La-Ti/WS2 composite film has the largest H/E value at 20 W, and still shows the best friction coefficient and the lowest wear rate, which is due to the synergistic effect of rare earth oxide formed during the process of high temperature friction and WS2 film.
3) An appropriate amount of rare earth doping is of great significance to solve the disadvantage of WS2 composite film which is easy to fail under high temperature environment.
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