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Design of Nanocomposite Low‐Friction Coatings

Friction and wear between moving surfaces is unavoidable and is an important reason for failure of mechanical components. A wear‐resistant and low‐friction coating can prolong the lifetime of an engineered component. Here we demonstrate a new concept for the design of low‐friction nanocomposite carbide coatings with an intrinsic driving force to form amorphous carbon (C–C bonds). Ti–Al–C has been chosen as a model system, but the idea is general and should be applicable to a wide class of materials. The ability to intrinsically form amorphous carbon is achieved by a substitutional solid solution of the weak‐carbide‐forming metal (Al) into the thermodynamically stable monocarbide (TiC). This creates, in a controllable manner, a driving force for phase separation of carbide particles embedded in a matrix of amorphous carbon. In a tribological contact the amorphous carbon can be further graphitized and thereby lower the friction coefficient. Consequently, the model system has a self‐lubricating mechanism but at the same time a tunable share of the two phases, which gives excellent possibilities to design wear resistance and toughness. In this paper we show that the friction coefficient can be lowered by more than 50 % for Al‐containing TiC coatings without severe loss in mechanical characteristics.