Abstract
Nakamori et al. found experimentally that the friction between a partly polished diamond coating and a metal surface was drastically reduced to zero as relative speed was increased [Diamond Relat. Mater., 14, (2005), 2122]. It seems that the diamond coating took off the counter surface because sliding was noiseless in their experiment. We consider that microscale roughness of the partly polished diamond coating may cause high gas pressure between two sliding surfaces and realize the gas-film lubrication. We clarify the mechanism that causes the lift force by performing numerical simulations. It is found that this lift force becomes notable especially in micro-/nanoscale gas flow.
