Self-assembly of ceria/graphene oxide composite films with ultra-long antiwear lifetime under a high applied load

In this work, we report a simple self-assembly way to prepare ceria/graphene oxide (CeO2 GO) composite films on silicon (Si) substrates, which exhibit significant enhancement on tribological performances compared with Si substrates and GO films. Specifically, the friction coefficient is reduced drastically to the one-third of that of Si substrates. What's more, the antiwear lifetime is markedly prolonged to similar to 8 h under a high applied load of 2 N, which is over seven times longer than that of GO films. It is expected that the CeO2/GO composite films may find wide applications in nano/microelectromechanical systems as high-performance solid lubricating films, due to their facile and low cost preparation, nano-scale thickness, lower friction coefficient and desired antiwear lifetime. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.