Monolayer NbSe2 Favors Ultralow Friction and Super Wear Resistance

Tongtong Yu; Ruilin Shen; Zishuai Wu; Changhe Du; Xiaojun Shen; Ning Jia; Haoyu Deng; Yongkang Zhao; Liqiang Zhang; Yange Feng; Zhinan Zhang; Yong Luo; Feng Zhou; Daoai Wang

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c04811

Monolayer NbSe₂ Favors Ultralow Friction and Super Wear Resistance

Nano Lett. 2023 Mar 8;23(5):1865-1871. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c04811. Epub 2023 Feb 15.

Authors

Tongtong Yu^{1

2}, Ruilin Shen^{1

3}, Zishuai Wu^{1

4}, Changhe Du^{1

5}, Xiaojun Shen⁶, Ning Jia⁷, Haoyu Deng^{1

5}, Yongkang Zhao^{1

2}, Liqiang Zhang^{1

2}, Yange Feng^{1

2}, Zhinan Zhang⁴, Yong Luo³, Feng Zhou¹, Daoai Wang^{1

5

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.
² Qingdao Center of Resource Chemistry and New Materials, Qingdao 266100, China.
³ School of Materials Science and Physics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
⁵ Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁶ School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798 Singapore.
⁷ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798 Singapore.

PMID: 36790333
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c04811

Abstract

The urgent demand for atomically thin, superlubricating, and super wear-resistant materials in micro/nanoelectromechanical systems has stimulated the research of friction-reducing and antiwear materials. However, the fabrication of subnanometer-thick films with superlubricating and super wear-resistant properties under ambient conditions remains a huge challenge. Herein, high-quality monolayer (ML) NbSe₂ (∼0.8 nm) with ultralow friction and super wear resistance in an atmospheric environment was successfully grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) for the first time. Moreover, compared with few-layered (FL) NbSe₂, ML NbSe₂ has a lower friction coefficient and better wear resistance. On the basis of density function theory (DFT) calculations, the adhesion and the degree of charge transfer between ML NbSe₂ and the substrate is larger than that of the topmost layer to the underlying layers of NbSe₂ with two or more layers, which can be used to explain that the ML NbSe₂ favors ultralow friction and super wear resistance.

Keywords: DFT calculations; NbSe2; friction; wear resistance.