Unprecedented tribological performance of binary Sb/Ag-doped MoS2 coatings fabricated with chemical vapor deposition

This study aims at assessing the tribological performance of novel self-lubricating chemical vapor-deposited MoS2 coatings binary-doped with antimony (Sb) and silver (Ag). The Sb/Ag-doped MoS2 composite coatings showed an excellent solid lubrication performance with low and constant coefficients of friction of about 0.1 for a sliding time of 6 h. Estimations of the underlying wear rates revealed a reduction of the resulting wear rate by two orders of magnitude for the binary-doped Sb/Ag–MoS2 composite coatings (2.43 ± 0.27 × 10–7 mm3/Nm versus 2.70 ± 0.44 × 10–5 mm3/Nm for un-doped MoS2 coating), which reflects an outstanding wear resistance.