Related papers: Solidification and superlubricity with molecular a…
A thin liquid film covered with an insoluble surfactant in the vicinity of a first-order phase transition is discussed. Within the lubrication approximation we derive two coupled equations to describe the height profile of the film and the…
Inter-surface forces mediated by polymer films are important in a range of technological and industrial situations. In cosmetics, applications such as hair conditioning typically rely on the adsorption of polyelectrolyte films onto the…
For three-dimensional mono-layer molecularly thin-film lubrication, it is found that elasticity of the substrate affects tribological behaviors of a thin fluid film confined by two solid substrates.To account for the elastic effects, a…
A huge number of technological and biological systems involves the lubricated contact between rough surfaces of soft solids in relative accelerated motion. Examples include dynamical rubber seals and the human joints. In this study we…
The sliding of three-dimensional clusters and two-dimensional islands adsorbed on crystal surfaces represent an important test case to understand friction. Even for the same material, monoatomic islands and thick clusters will not as a rule…
Nanofluidic transport is ubiquitous in natural systems from extra-cellular communication in biology to geological phenomena, and promotes the emergence of new technologies such as energy harvesting and water desalination. While experimental…
This paper reports on the frictional properties of smooth rubber substrates sliding against rigid surfaces covered with various densities of colloidal nano-particles (average diameter 77 nm). Friction experiments were carried out using a…
The melting of ultrathin lubricant film by friction between atomically flat surfaces is studied. The additive noises of the elastic shear stress and strain, and the temperature are introduced for building a phase diagram with the domains of…
Confinement breaks the translational symmetry of materials. Such symmetry breaking can be used to obtain configurations that are not otherwise accessible in the bulk. Here, we explore the effect of substrate-liquid interactions on the…
We present a single, unified, multi-scale model to study the attachment\detachment dynamics of two deforming, near spherical cells, coated with binding ligands and subject to a slow, homogeneous shear flow in a viscous fluid medium. The…
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study contact between a rigid, nonadhesive, spherical tip with radius of order 30nm and a flat elastic substrate covered with a fluid monolayer of adsorbed chain molecules. Previous studies of bare…
We report on the thinning of supported liquid films driven by thermocapillarity. The liquids are oil films, of initial thicknesses of a few tens of microns. A local and moderate heating of the glass substrate on which they are spread on…
Phase equilibria between regions of different thickness in thin liquid films stabilized by colloidal particles are investigated using a quasi-two-dimensional thermodynamic formalism. Appropriate equilibrium conditions for the film tension,…
We study phase separation in thin films using the Navier--Stokes Cahn--Hilliard equations in the lubrication approximation, modeling substrate-film interactions with a van der Waals potential. We investigate the thin-film equations…
The dynamics of thin films on a horizontal solid substrate is investigated in the case of non-Newtonian fluids exhibiting normal stress differences, the rheology of which is strongly non-linear. Two coupled equations of evolution for the…
Using Brownian dynamics (BD) simulations and an analytical approach we investigate the shear-induced, nonequilibrium dynamics of dense colloidal suspensions confined to a narrow slit-pore. Focusing on situations where the colloids arrange…
We formulate a theoretical model of the shear failure of a thin film tethered to a rigid substrate. The interface between film and substrate is modeled as a cohesive layer with randomly fluctuating shear strength/fracture energy. We…
Recent highly idealized model studies of lubricated nanofriction for two crystalline sliding surfaces with an interposed thin solid crystalline lubricant layer showed that the overall relative velocity of the lubricant $v_{\rm lub} / v_{\rm…
A correlation is established between the macro-scale friction regimes of metals and a transition between two dominant atomistic mechanisms of deformation. Metals tend to exhibit bi-stable friction behavior -- low and converging or high and…
The viscosity of liquids under nanoconfinement remains controversial. Reports range from spontaneous solidification to no change in the viscosity at all. Here, we present thorough measurements with a small-amplitude linear atomic force…