Related papers: Structural Lubricity and Molecular Contamination: …
Superlubricity, or alternatively termed structural (super)lubrictiy, is a concept where ultra-low friction is expected at the interface between sliding surfaces if these surfaces are incommensurate and thus unable to interlock. In this…
Structural superlubricity is an intriguing physical phenomenon, whereby sliding at a structurally incommensurate, atomically flat interface yields vanishingly small friction forces. Despite its recent experimental validation, critical…
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…
Structural lubricity arises typically at incommensurate, well-defined dry contacts where short-range elastic instability is significantly mitigated. However, under ambient conditions, airborne molecules adsorb onto solid surfaces, forming…
We present a computational study of sliding between gold clusters and a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite substrate, a material system that exhibits ultra-low friction due to structural lubricity. By means of molecular dynamics, it is…
We review the present state of understanding of solid friction at low velocities and for systems with negligibly small wear effects. We first analyze in detail the behavior of friction at interfaces between wacroscopic hard rough solids,…
Manipulation of metal nanoparticles using atomic force microscope is a promising new technique for probing tribological properties at the nanoscale. In spite of some advancements in experimental investigations, there is no unambiguous…
The sliding motion of gold slabs adsorbed on a graphite substrate is simulated using molecular-dynamics. The central quantity of interest is the mean lateral force, i.e., the kinetic friction rather than the maximum lateral forces, which…
The state of vanishing friction known as superlubricity has important applications for energy saving and increasing the lifetime of devices. Superlubricity detected with atomic force microscopy appears in examples like sliding large…
While friction stems from the fundamental interactions between atoms at a contact interface, its best descriptions at the macroscopic scale remain phenomenological. The so called "rate-and-state" models, which specify the friction response…
We study the effect of atomic scale surface-lubricant interactions on nanoscale boundary-lubricated friction, by considering two example surfaces - hydrophilic mica and hydrophobic graphene - confining thin layers of water in molecular…
Stability of lubricating fluid infused slippery surfaces is a concern for scientists and engineers and attempts are being made for its improvement. Lubricating oil coated slippery surface for aqueous drops is one of the important candidates…
With the recent important development of microfluidic systems, miniaturization of flow devices has become a real challenge. Microchannels, however, are characterized by a large surface to volume ratio, so that surface properties strongly…
The effect of surface curvature on the law relating frictional forces F with normal load L is investigated by molecular dynamics simulations as a function of surface symmetry, adhesion, and contamination. Curved, non-adhering, dry,…
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 wear-driven structural evolution of nanocrystalline Cu was simulated with molecular dynamics under constant normal loads, followed by a quantitative analysis. While the microstructure far away from the sliding contact remains unchanged,…
This paper examines friction as a function of the sliding velocity and applied normal load from air to UHV in a scanning force microscope (SFM) experiment in which a sharp silicon tip slides against a flat Si(100) sample. Under ambient…
The surface of a crystal made of roughly spherical molecules exposes, above its bulk rotational phase transition at T= T$_r$, a carpet of freely rotating molecules, possibly functioning as "nanobearings" in sliding friction. We explored by…
The phenomenon of aging in soft matter systems is an intriguing and interesting. In his study we investigate the microstructure and aging dynamics of fluorescent nanoclay gels formed from the mixture of small (~25) and large (~250) aspect…
Atomic structures of nanomaterials are inherently dynamic, continuously reshaped through interactions with chemical species and external stimuli. Such dynamics are further amplified as the size and dimensionality of nanomaterials are…