Filippo Mangolini

Mechanisms of antiwear tribofilm growth revealed in situ by single-asperity sliding contacts

Additive explanation for anti-wear Additives in oil are vital for protecting engines from wear by forming films at sliding interfaces. Zinc dialkydithiophosphate (ZDDP) has been used for decades to reduce engine wear. Now there is a strong incentive for finding a replacement for ZDDP: Its breakdown products shorten catalytic converter lifetime. Gosvami et al. examined exactly how ZDDP produces an anti-wear film under high stress or elevated temperature (see the Perspective by Schwarz). Understanding these mechanisms will help in the development of higher-performance and more effective additives. Science, this issue p. 102; see also p. 40 Antiwear properties of an oil additive stem from tribofilms that develop under elevated stresses and temperatures. [Also see Perspective by Schwarz] Zinc dialkyldithiophosphates (ZDDPs) form antiwear tribofilms at sliding interfaces and are widely used as additives in automotive lubricants. The mechanisms governing the tribofilm growth are not well understood, which limits the development of replacements that offer better performance and are less likely to degrade automobile catalytic converters over time. Using atomic force microscopy in ZDDP-containing lubricant base stock at elevated temperatures, we monitored the growth and properties of the tribofilms in situ in well-defined single-asperity sliding nanocontacts. Surface-based nucleation, growth, and thickness saturation of patchy tribofilms were observed. The growth rate increased exponentially with either applied compressive stress or temperature, consistent with a thermally activated, stress-assisted reaction rate model. Although some models rely on the presence of iron to catalyze tribofilm growth, the films grew regardless of the presence of iron on either the tip or substrate, highlighting the critical role of stress and thermal activation.

Complete characterization by Raman spectroscopy of the structural properties of thin hydrogenated diamond-like carbon films exposed to rapid thermal annealing

We have demonstrated that multi-wavelength Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopies are sufficient to completely characterize the structural properties of ultra-thin hydrogenated diamond-like carbon (DLC:H) films subjected to rapid thermal annealing (RTA, 1 s up to 659u2009°C) and to resolve the structural differences between films grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, facing target sputtering and filtered cathodic vacuum arc with minute variations in values of mass density, hydrogen content, and sp3 fraction. In order to distinguish unequivocally between films prepared with different density, thickness, and RTA treatment, a new method for analysis of Raman spectra was invented. This newly developed analysis method consisted of plotting the position of the Raman G band of carbon versus its full width at half maximum. Moreover, we studied the passivation of non-radiative recombination centers during RTA by performing measurements of the increase in photoluminescence in conjunction with the analysis of DLC:H networks simulated by molecular dynamics. The results show that dangling bond passivation is primarily a consequence of thermally-induced sp2 clustering rather than hydrogen diffusion in the film.

Accounting for nanometer-thick adventitious carbon contamination in X-ray absorption spectra of carbon-based materials.

Near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy is a powerful technique for characterizing the composition and bonding state of nanoscale materials and the top few nanometers of bulk and thin film specimens. When coupled with imaging methods like photoemission electron microscopy, it enables chemical imaging of materials with nanometer-scale lateral spatial resolution. However, analysis of NEXAFS spectra is often performed under the assumption of structural and compositional homogeneity within the nanometer-scale depth probed by this technique. This assumption can introduce large errors when analyzing the vast majority of solid surfaces due to the presence of complex surface and near-surface structures such as oxides and contamination layers. An analytical methodology is presented for removing the contribution of these nanoscale overlayers from NEXAFS spectra of two-layered systems to provide a corrected photoabsorption spectrum of the substrate. This method relies on the subtraction of the NEXAFS spectrum of the overlayer adsorbed on a reference surface from the spectrum of the two-layer system under investigation, where the thickness of the overlayer is independently determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). This approach is applied to NEXAFS data acquired for one of the most challenging cases: air-exposed hard carbon-based materials with adventitious carbon contamination from ambient exposure. The contribution of the adventitious carbon was removed from the as-acquired spectra of ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) and hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) to determine the intrinsic photoabsorption NEXAFS spectra of these materials. The method alters the calculated fraction of sp(2)-hybridized carbon from 5 to 20% and reveals that the adventitious contamination can be described as a layer containing carbon and oxygen ([O]/[C] = 0.11 ± 0.02) with a thickness of 0.6 ± 0.2 nm and a fraction of sp(2)-bonded carbon of 0.19 ± 0.03. This method can be generally applied to the characterization of surfaces and interfaces in several research fields and technological applications.

Thermally Induced Structural Evolution of Silicon- and Oxygen-Containing Hydrogenated Amorphous Carbon: A Combined Spectroscopic and Molecular Dynamics Simulation Investigation

Silicon- and oxygen-containing hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H:Si:O) coatings are amorphous thin-film materials composed of hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H), doped with silicon and oxygen. Compared to a-C:H, a-C:H:Si:O exhibits much lower susceptibility to oxidative degradation and higher thermal stability, making a-C:H:Si:O attractive for many applications. However, the physical mechanisms for this improved behavior are not understood. Here, the thermally induced structural evolution of a-C:H:Si:O was investigated in situ by X-ray photoelectron and absorption spectroscopy, as well as molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The spectroscopy results indicate that upon high vacuum annealing, two thermally activated processes with a Gaussian distribution of activation energies with mean value E and standard deviation σ take place in a-C:H:Si:O: (a) ordering and clustering of sp2 carbon ( E ± σ = 0.22 ± 0.08 eV) and (b) conversion of sp3- to sp2-bonded carbon ( E ± σ = 3.0 ± 1.1 eV). The experimental results are in qualitative agreement with the outcomes of MD simulations performed using a ReaxFF potential. The MD simulations also indicate that the higher thermal stability of a-C:H:Si:O compared to a-C:H (with similar fraction of sp2-bonded carbon and hydrogen content) derives from the significantly lower fraction of strained carbon-carbon sp3 bonds in a-C:H:Si:O compared to a-C:H, which are more likely to break at elevated temperatures.

Valence Band Control of Metal Silicide Films via Stoichiometry

The unique electronic and mechanical properties of metal silicide films render them interesting for advanced materials in plasmonic devices, batteries, field-emitters, thermoelectric devices, transistors, and nanoelectromechanical switches. However, enabling their use requires precisely controlling their electronic structure. Using platinum silicide (PtxSi) as a model silicide, we demonstrate that the electronic structure of PtxSi thin films (1 ≤ x ≤ 3) can be tuned between metallic and semimetallic by changing the stoichiometry. Increasing the silicon content in PtxSi decreases the carrier density according to valence band X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and theoretical density of states (DOS) calculations. Among all PtxSi phases, Pt3Si offers the highest DOS due to the modest shift of the Pt5d manifold away from the Fermi edge by only 0.5 eV compared to Pt, rendering it promising for applications. These results, demonstrating tunability of the electronic structure of thin metal silicide films, suggest that metal silicides can be designed to achieve application-specific electronic properties.

Quantitative Evaluation of the Carbon Hybridization State by Near Edge X-ray Absorption Fine Structure Spectroscopy.

The characterization of the local bonding configuration of carbon in carbon-based materials is of paramount importance since the properties of such materials strongly depend on the distribution of carbon hybridization states, the local ordering, and the degree of hydrogenation. Carbon 1s near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy is one of the most powerful techniques for gaining insights into the bonding configuration of near-surface carbon atoms. The common methodology for quantitatively evaluating the carbon hybridization state using Cxa01s NEXAFS measurements, which is based on the analysis of the sample of interest and of a highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) reference sample, was reviewed and critically assessed, noting that inconsistencies are found in the literature in applying this method. A theoretical rationale for the specific experimental conditions to be used for the acquisition of HOPG reference spectra is presented together with the potential sources of uncertainty and errors in the correctly computed fraction of sp(2)-bonded carbon. This provides a specific method for analyzing the distribution of carbon hybridization state using NEXAFS spectroscopy. As an illustrative example, a hydrogenated amorphous carbon film was analyzed using this method and showed good agreement with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (which is surface sensitive). Furthermore, the results were consistent with analysis from Raman spectroscopy (which is not surface sensitive), indicating the absence of a structurally different near-surface region in this particular thin film material. The present work can assist surface scientists in the analysis of NEXAFS spectra for the accurate characterization of the structure of carbon-based materials.