physica status solidi (RRL) - Rapid Research Letters

Particle‐induced erosion is an important form of materials wear. The erosion mechanism lacks good understanding due to the limitation of experimental techniques to characterize the fast impact process between particle and materials. Herein, the particle‐induced erosion of diamond‐like carbon (DLC) films is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. It is found that the impact process shows an evident fluctuation. The impact energy is mainly absorbed during the first fluctuation period, and the fluctuations in other periods are dominated by elastic deformations. The energy absorbed in the first period shows a linear relation with the maximum material loss, and such relation indicates that there exists a threshold vertical impact velocity to initiate the loss of DLC films, which is due to the initiation of their plastic deformation. The maximum impact force shows a linear dependence on the impact velocity, attributed to the structural changes of DLC films. Moreover, the DLC films show large volume loss with both impact angles of 90° and 45°, indicating that these films exhibit both brittle and ductile impact behaviors due to their specific structural changes. These results can help to uncover the erosional behaviors of DLC films and elucidate the particle‐induced erosion mechanisms at the nanoscale.