Carbon embedding (⩽1 nm) in the top surface of cobalt (∼100 nm) sputtered on a silicon surface is used as a surface modification technique to evaluate the tribological properties with or without an ultra-thin layer of perfluoropolyether (PFPE) lubricant. The carbon embedding is achieved using the filtered cathodic vacuum arc technique at an ion energy of 90 eV. Transport of ions in matter simulations, time-of-flight secondary ion spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) are used to study the carbon embedding profiles and surface chemical composition. The XPS results show that carbon embedding using the ion energy of 90 eV results in the formation of about 58 ± 6% of tetrahedral (sp³) carbon hybridization. Furthermore, the XPS results also show that the carbon embedding is effective in improving the anti-oxidation resistance of cobalt. Ball-on-disk tribological tests are conducted at a contact pressure of 0.26 GPa on the modified cobalt surface with or without the PFPE layer. It is observed that the average coefficient of friction is reduced considerably from a value of approximately 0.7 to 0.42 after the surface modification. The coefficient of friction is further reduced to ∼0.26 after the deposition of an ultra-thin layer of PFPE over the modified surface, which is lower than a friction coefficient of 0.4 from commercial media. The modified cobalt surface also shows much better wear life than the present day commercial media.