Preparation and tribological properties of Sol-Gel TiO2-ZrO2 composite thin films

High oriented TiO-ZrOcomposite thin films on Si （100） and glass sheet were suc-cessfully prepared by sol-gel process followed by dip-coating the ethanol solution of zirconiumoxychloride and titanium tetrachloride. The sol-gel process, microstructure, morphology and tri-bological properties of TiO-ZrOfilms were investigated using TGA, DSC, XPS, XRD, AFM anddynamic-static tribometer. The results show that the TiO-ZrOfilms are dense, homogeneous andat a complete tetragonal phase with an excellent antiwear and friction reduction performance. Un-der 0.5N applied load, the friction coefficient is 0.14-0.20 and the antiwear life is more than 5000sliding cycles for both TiO-ZrO/ AISI 52100 steel and TiO-ZrO/ SiN. SEM observation sug-gests that wear mechanism of TiO-ZrOcomposite film under low load was fatigue wear, andunder high load was adhesive wear. The TiO-ZrOfilms show potential applications as coatingsfor antiwear and friction reduction under the harsh condition.