Abstract

Achieving wear-less materials at current-carrying friction is troublesome problem due to arc erosion wear and insufficient lubrication. In this work, we propose a novel approach for receiving near-zero wear protection of current-carrying frictional material by in-situ forming a metallic lubricating film. We constructed the tribo-pair of Mo coating and Al alloy with gallium-based liquid metal (GLM) lubrication at current-carrying friction, which showed that GLM as an effective conductive lubricant not only inhibits arc erosion and abrasive wear but also significantly enhances electron transport efficiency at the contact surface. Moreover, we found an exceptional "negative wear" effect due to the formation of tribo-layer containing Ga@Al nano-laminar microstructure, thereby realizing the wear-less performance of Mo coating. This method of material protection is anticipated to an emerging life-extension solution to conductive tribo-material and electric engineering.

Keywords Plus：TRIBOLOGICAL PROPERTIES，BEHAVIOR

Published in APPLIED SURFACE SCIENCE，；Volume706；10.1016/j.apsusc.2025.163527，OCT 15 2025