Ultra-low friction and excellent elastic recovery of fullerene-like hydrogenated carbon film based on multilayer design

Multilayer fullerene-like hydrogenated carbon (FL-C:H) films were synthesized by using the chemical vapour deposition technique with a different flow rate of methane. The typical fullerene-like structure of as-prepared films was investigated by using transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectra. The prepared multilayered FL-C:H films showed a high elastic recovery (\({\sim }\)90\(\%\)), ultra-low friction coefficient (\({\sim }\)0.019) and low wear rate \(({\sim }3.0\times 10^{-9}\,\hbox {mm}^{3}\,\hbox {Nm}^{-1})\) in humid air.