CNR NANO - Istituto Nanoscienze Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

NANOFRICTION

 

People

Maria Clelia Righi

Guido Paolicelli

Sergio Valeri

Alberto Rota

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Motivation & objectives.

Friction phenomena affect our life in many direct ways and are core to energy savings: in fact, 5% to 10% of the GDP of industrialized nations are lost due to friction and wear. Tribology is the science of adhesion, friction and wear between sliding surfaces. At the interface the contact occurs through numerous asperities. However, when the size of the contact is reduced to the nano scale, the contact itself may collapse to a single asperity. Hence, the importance of investigating single-asperity contacts has been long recognized and has led to the appearance of the new field of nanotribology. At the same time the combination of multiple nanometric contacts can affect friction phenomena from the nano to the macro scale, following different and not completely understood rules with respect to the classical theory of friction. It is not only the deep interest in fundamental science, but also the development of nanodevices with moving components, that has boosted the field of nanotribology. In miniaturized devices such as MEMS/NEMS adhesion and friction play a crucial role in determining their functionality and standard lubrication mechanisms are not effective. A more complete understanding of friction laws at the nano scale and the ability to change the tribological properties of materials can have important consequences in developing novel devices.

 

Methods:

- Experiment: (see page) Atomic force microscopy, friction force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, focused ion beam.

 

- Theory: (see page) Density Functional Theory electronic structure calculations, classical and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations.