Nanotribology by Atomic Force Microscopy

Hsiang-Chih Chiu^1*

¹Department of Physics, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

* Presenter:Hsiang-Chih Chiu, email:chiu@ntnu.edu.tw

Understanding the frictional phenomena at the nanoscale is essential not only to the development of nanotechnology but also to the advancement in basic science. Although friction is one of the oldest problems in the history of physics, its fundamental understanding at the nanoscale is still in its incipient stage. In this talk, I will briefly introduce “Nanotribology”, the study of nanoscopic friction by using atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based techniques, and discuss how energy dissipations between sliding surfaces may lead to friction. I will also present some results we obtained on carbon nanotubes, single-layer graphene, and zinc oxide surfaces by AFM, to demonstrate how different energy dissipation channels between surfaces in sliding contact may lead to different frictional behaviors at the nanoscale.

Keywords: nanotribology, friction, atomic force microscopy