Dresden 2017 – scientific programme
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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik
O 92: Gerhard Ertl Young Investigator Award
O 92.5: Talk
Thursday, March 23, 2017, 12:30–13:00, TRE Ma
Structural Lubricity under Ambient Conditions — •Mehmet Z. Baykara — Department of Mechanical Engineering, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey — UNAM - Institute of Materials Science and Nanotechnology, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey
Despite its fundamental importance, physical mechanisms that govern friction are poorly understood. While a state of ultra-low friction, termed structural lubricity, is expected for any clean, atomically flat interface consisting of two different materials with incommensurate structures, associated predictions could only be quantitatively confirmed under ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions so far. In this contribution, we report structurally lubric sliding under ambient conditions at mesoscopic (4,000-130,000 nm2) interfaces formed by gold islands on graphite, in excellent agreement with theory [1]. Ab initio calculations reveal that the gold-graphite interface is expected to remain largely free from contaminant molecules, leading to structurally lubric sliding. The experiments reported here demonstrate the potential for practical lubrication schemes for micro- and nano-electromechanical systems that would mainly rely on an atomic-scale structural mismatch between the slider and substrate components.
[1]: E. Cihan, S. Ipek, E. Durgun, M.Z. Baykara, Nature Communications 7, 12055 (2016).