Berlin 2005 – scientific programme

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O: Oberflächenphysik

O 7: Symposium Recent Progress in Scanning Probe Methods

O 7.4: Fachvortrag

Friday, March 4, 2005, 12:30–13:00, TU H3005

Recent Progress in Friction Force Microscopy — •Roland Bennewitz — Physics Department, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

The development of Scanning Force Microscopy has provided us with tools to study friction and wear on the nanometer scale. The atomic granularity of matter shows up in the lateral force which is necessary to slide a small contact over a flat surface. Also, mechanical damage of a sample surface can be monitored with monolayer resolution. I will discuss the laws which determine the dependence of atomic friction on normal load or velocity, and in what respect they differ from the ones we have learned to describe macroscopic friction. For small scales, a regime of ultra-low friction has long been suggested which recently has been experimentally realized.