Abstract
Amorphous C:H containing silicon film shows an extremely low friction coefficient of 0.007 when the film is rubbed with a steel ball in a vacuum. This film is deposited on steel with an electron cyclotron resonance plasma of ethylene and silane. Polarized microinfrared spectroscopy reveals that high lubrication performance is attributed to hydrocarbons transferred from the rubbed film to the ball surface and oriented along the sliding direction.