Ultralow wear of gallium nitride
At a Glance
Section titled āAt a Glanceā| Metadata | Details |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 2016-08-01 |
| Journal | Applied Physics Letters |
| Authors | Guosong Zeng, CheeāKeong Tan, Nelson Tansu, Brandon A. Krick |
| Institutions | Lehigh University, Photonics (United States) |
| Citations | 41 |
Abstract
Section titled āAbstractāHere, we reveal a remarkable (and surprising) physical property of GaN: it is extremely wear resistant. In fact, we measured the wear rate of GaN is approaching wear rates reported for diamond. Not only does GaN have an ultralow wear rate but also there are quite a few experimental factors that control the magnitude of its wear rate, further contributing to the rich and complex physics of wear of GaN. Here, we discovered several primary controlling factors that will affect the wear rate of III-Nitride materials: crystallographic orientation, sliding environment, and coating composition (GaN, InN and InGaN). Sliding in the āØ12ĀÆ10ā© is significantly lower wear than āØ11ĀÆ00ā©. Wear increases by 2 orders of magnitude with increasing humidity (from ā¼0% to 50% RH). III-Nitride coatings are promising as multifunctional material systems for device design and sliding wear applications.