The incorporation of N in a-C film is able to improve the friction coefficient and the adhesion to various substrates. In this study, a-C:N films were deposited on Si and steel substrates by closed-field unbalanced magnetron (CFUBM) sputtering system in $Ar/N_2$ plasma. The lubricant characteristics was investigated for a-C:N deposited with total working pressure from 4 to 7 mTorr. We obtained high hardness up to 24GPa, friction coefficient lower than 0.1 and the smooth surface of having the extremely low roughness (0.16 nm). The physcial properties of a-C:N thin film are related to the increase of cross-linked $sp^2$ bonding clusters in the film. However, the decrease of hardness, elastic modulus and the increase of surface roughness, friction coefficient with the increase of $N_2$ partial pressrue might be due to the effect of energetic ions as a result of the increase of ion bombardment with the increase of ion density in the plasma.