Related papers: Non-contact friction between nanostructures
We analyse van der Waals interactions between a pair of dielectrically anisotropic plane-layered media interacting across a dielectrically isotropic solvent medium. We develop a general formalism based on transfer matrices to investigate…
The understanding of friction at nano-scales, ruled by the regular arrangement of atoms, is surprisingly incomplete. Here we provide a unified understanding by studying the interlocking potential energy of two infinite contacting surfaces…
We investigate the question of stability of a solid thin film which experiences external interactions such as van der Waals forces from a contacting surface or forces from an external electric field. Both perfectly elastic and viscoelastic…
Understanding the contact between solid surfaces is a long standing problem which has a strong impact on the physics of many processes such as adhesion, friction, lubrication and wear. Experimentally, the investigation of solid/solid…
Frictional properties of contacts between a smooth viscoelastic rubber and rigid surfaces are investigated using a torsional contact configuration where a glass lens is continuously rotated on the rubber surface. From the inversion of the…
We develop a theory of static friction by modeling the homogeneous surfaces of contact as being composed of a regular array of compressible elastic smooth microscopic inclines. Static friction is thought of as the resistance due to having…
The strength of an atom-surface interaction is determined by studying atom diffraction from a rotated material grating. A phasor diagram is developed to interpret why diffraction orders are never completely suppressed when a complex…
The goal of this PhD thesis was to characterize the properties of friction in nanotubes and from a more general point of view the understanding of the microscopic origin of friction. Indeed, the relative simplicity of the system allows us…
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…
. We consider the effect of an external bias voltage and the spatial variation of the surface potential, on the damping of cantilever vibrations. The electrostatic friction is due to energy losses in the sample created by the…
We study the dispersion interaction of the van der Waals and Casimir-Polder (vdW-CP) type between a neutral atom and the surface of a metal by allowing for nonlocal electrodynamics, i.e. electron diffusion. We consider two models: (i) bulk…
We explore dynamic structural superlubricity for the case of a relatively large contact area, where the friction force is proportional to the area (exceeding $\sim 100\,nm^2$) experimentally, numerically, and theoretically. We use a setup…
By using ab-initio-accurate force fields and molecular dynamics simulations we demonstrate that the layer stiffness has profound effects on the superlubricant state of two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures. These are engineered to…
Traditional laws of friction believe that the friction coefficient of two specific solids takes constant value. However, molecular simulations revealed that the friction coefficient of nanosized asperity depends strongly on contact size and…
We consider two perfectly smooth featureless surfaces at T=0, defined only by their respective dielectric functions, separated by a finite distance, and ask the question whether they can experience any friction when sheared parallel to…
The connection between friction and jamming in granular media, molecular glasses, and complex fluids is explored. The paper first reviews the way friction is measured, the types of results that are observed, and what is known about the…
A microscopic theory for the ubiquitous phenomenon of static friction is presented. Interactions between two surfaces are modeled by an energy penalty that increases exponentially with the degree of surface overlap. The resulting static…
In this article, we rigorously analyze the effects of the dispersion forces (Casimir and van der Waals forces) on a nano-optomechanical device based on a silicon waveguide and a silicon dioxide substrate, surrounded by air and driven by…
Rolling of a small sphere on a solid support is governed by a non-linear friction that is akin to the Coulombic dry fiction. No motion occurs when the external field is weaker than the frictional resistance. However, with the intervention…
From microscopic fluid clusters to macroscopic droplets, the structure of fluids is governed by the Van der Waals force, a force that acts between polarizable objects. In this Letter, we derive a general theory that describes the…