Multimedia Gallery
Atom-level View of Nanoscale Interface
An atom-level view of the nanoscale--mere billionths of a meter--interface between amorphous carbon and diamond. At such a small scale, the surfaces are rough, although researchers have been treating them as smooth. A team of engineers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, used computer simulations to demonstrate that friction at the atomic level behaves similarly to friction generated between large objects. They found that friction is proportional to the number of atoms that interact between two nanoscale surfaces. The researchers' simulations showed that at the nanoscale, materials in contact behave more like large, rough objects rubbing against each other than as two, perfectly smooth surfaces, as was previously imagined. The research was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
For more information, see the UW news story Models present a new view of nanoscale friction. (Date of Image: 2009)
Credit: Courtesy University of Wisconsin
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