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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 91 » Issue 8
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 084502 (2003) [4 pages]

Interaction Potential and Hopping Dynamics Governing Sliding Friction

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E. Riedo1,*, E. Gnecco2, R. Bennewitz2, E. Meyer2, and H. Brune1
1Institut de Physique des Nanostructures, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
2Institute of Physics, University of Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 82, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland

Received 16 December 2002; published 19 August 2003

The friction force on a nanometer-sized tip sliding on a surface is related to the thermally activated hopping of the contact atoms on an effective atomic interaction potential. A general analytical expression relates the height of this potential and the hopping attempt frequency to measurements of the velocity dependence of the friction force performed with an atomic force microscope. While the height of the potential is roughly proportional to the normal load, the attempt frequency falls in the range of mechanical eigenfrequencies of the probing tip in contact with the surface.

© 2003 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.084502
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.084502
PACS:
46.55.+d, 07.79.Sp

*Present Address: Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

 
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