Friction laws at the nanoscale

Yifei Mo, Kevin T. Turner and Izabela Szlufarska ()
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Yifei Mo: Materials Science Program,
Kevin T. Turner: Materials Science Program,
Izabela Szlufarska: Materials Science Program,

Nature, 2009, vol. 457, issue 7233, 1116-1119

Abstract: Friction at the nanoscale For large objects sliding over one another, the friction force is proportional to the true contact area between the two bodies — which is smaller than the apparent contact area because the surfaces are rough, consisting of a large number of smaller features (asperities) that actually make the contact. The situation for nanomaterials, however, has been unclear, since the continuum contact theory that can account for macroscale effects has been predicted to break down at the nanoscale. Using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of scanning force microscopy experiments, Yifei Mo et al. show that, despite this, simple friction laws do apply at the nanoscale: the friction force depends linearly on the number of atoms, rather than the number of asperities, that are chemically interacting across the sliding interfaces.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1038/nature07748

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