Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vsgnj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T09:39:31.442Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nanotribology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2013

James F. Belak
Get access

Extract

Friction, lubrication, wear, and adhesion are all phenomena familiar from everyday experience. We experience friction when we go for a walk on ordinary ground—we do not expect to fall flat on our faces, as we might when walking on ice. Wear is particularly well known because it leads to catastrophic failure and represents one of the most costly problems facing industry today. These phenomena are part of the field of tribology—the science of interacting surfaces in relative motion. A macroscopic understanding of tribology is crucial for the design and engineering of mechanical components. As dimensional tolerances of these components approach the nanometer scale and novel new materials are used in their fabrication, macroscopic understanding must give way to a microscopic atomic-scale understanding. This fundamental microscopic understanding and its practical application remain limited.

With the advent of surface proximity probes, however, those limitations are rapidly disappearing. Researchers are now able to test and develop a microscopic understanding of such tribological phenomena as boundary-layer lubrication and asperity-surface interactions—ideas that underlie our current macroscopic understanding. This emerging field is known as nanotribology or molecular tribology, the focus of this issue of the MRS Bulletin. The new experimental probes include the surface force apparatus for measuring interfacial forces as a function of surface separation and, more recently, rheological properties of molecularly thin layers; a quartz-crystal microbalance for measuring the atomic-scale friction of adsorbed monolayer films; and the atomic force microscope (AFM) for measuring nanomechanical properties of surfaces, atomicscale friction of clean surfaces, and frictional properties of surfaces coated with molecular films.

Type
Nanotribology
Information
MRS Bulletin , Volume 18 , Issue 5 , May 1993 , pp. 15 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Nichols, F.A., MRS Bulletin 16 (10) (1991) p. 30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Bowden, F.P. and Tabor, D., The Friction and Lubrication of Solids (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986).Google Scholar
3.Granick, S., MRS Bulletin 16 (10) (1991) p. 33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4.Israelachvili, J.N. and Adams, G.E., J. them. Soc. Faraday Trans. II 74 (1978) p. 975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5.Chen, Y-L. and Israelachvili, J.N., J. Phys. Chem. 96 (1992) p. 7752.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6.Van Alsten, J. and Granick, S., Phys. Rev. Lett. 61 (1991) p. 33.Google Scholar
7.Krim, J., Solina, D.H., and Chiarello, R., Phys. Rev. Lett. 66 (1991) p. 181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8.Burnham, N.A. and Colton, R.J., J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 7 (1989) p. 2906.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9.Salmeron, M., Folch, A., Neubauer, G., Tomitori, M., Ogletree, D.F., and Kolbe, W., Langmuir 8 (1992) p. 2832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10.Mate, C.M., McClelland, G.M., Erlandsson, R., and Chiang, S., Phys. Rev. Lett. 59 (1987) p. 1942.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11.Mate, C.M., Phys. Rev. Lett. 68 (1992) p. 3323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12.Burnham, N.A., Dominguez, D.D., Mowery, R.L., and Colton, R.J., Phys. Rev. Lett. 64 (1990) p. 1931.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13.Meyer, E., Overney, R., Brodbeck, D., Howard, L., Luthi, R., Frommer, J., and Güntherodt, H-J., Phys. Rev. Lett. 69 (1992) p. 1777.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14.Landman, U. and Luedtke, W.D., J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 9 (1991) p. 414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15.Smith, J.R., Bozzolo, G., Banerjea, A., and Ferrante, J., Phys. Rev. Lett. 63 (1989) p. 1269CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16.Luedtke, W.D. and Landman, U., Comput. Mater. Sci. 1 (1992) p. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17.Thompson, P.A. and Robbins, M.O., Science 250 (1990) p. 792; Thompson, P.A. and M.O. Robbins, Phys. Rev. Lett. 68 (1992) p. 3448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18.Harrison, J.A., White, C.T., Colton, R.J., and Brenner, D.W., Phys. Rev. B 46 (1992) p. 9700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19.Belak, J. and Stowers, I.F., NATO ASI Proceedings on Fundamentals of Friction, edited by Singer, I.L. and Pollock, H.M. (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1992) p. 405.Google Scholar
20.McClelland, G.M. and Glosli, J.N., NATO ASI Proceedings on Fundamentals of Friction, edited by Singer, I.L. and Pollock, H.M. (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1992) p. 405.Google Scholar
21.Siepmann, J.I. and McDonald, I.R., Phys. Rev. Lett. 70 (1993) p. 453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22.Fundamentals of Friction: Macroscopic and Microscopic Processes, edited by Singer, I.L. and Pollock, H.M., NATO ASI 220 (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23.Pharr, G.M. and Oliver, W.C., J. Mater. Res. 4 (1989) p. 94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24.New Materials Approaches to Tribology: Theory and Applications, edited by Pope, L.E., Fehrenbacher, L.L., and Winer, W.O. (Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. 140, Pittsburgh, PA).Google Scholar