MONTE CARLO SIMULATIONS OF ATOMIC SLIDING FRICTION: TEMPERATURE AND VELOCITY EFFECTS

SERGIOJ.MANZI; WILFRED T. TYSOE; VICTOR D. PEREYRA; ERNESTO J. PERINO; OCTAVIO J.FURLONG

Ciudad de Buenos Aires

Workshop; 2º INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP OF TRIBOLOGY TRIBaires 2013; 2013

Asociación Argentina de Tribología

For general purposes and industrial applications, the friction phenomenon is studied from a macroscopic scale point of view. However, with the increasing demand for Micro- and Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS&NEMS), a better understanding of the frictional phenomena down to the atomic scale has become great importance. With the introduction of the atomic force microscope (AFM), it has been possible to study friction phenomena under single-asperity conditions. One of the conceptually simplest models that has been successfully used to describe the atomic origins of sliding friction was initially proposed by Tomlinson and Prandtl [1-3]. This model assumes a periodically varying change in potential energy at the sliding interface, which is easily understood in the case of a single atomic contact, such as might be encountered in AFM experiments.