Mechanism of Atomic Friction

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Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd
, , Citation T. Gyalog et al 1995 EPL 31 269 DOI 10.1209/0295-5075/31/5-6/004

0295-5075/31/5-6/269

Abstract

We discuss recent results on atomic friction at clean atomically flat surfaces obtained by atomic-force microscopy in terms of a simple two-dimensional model. Instabilities of the tip position give rise to irreversible jumps which are responsible for the occurrence of friction. The model calculations are in good agreement with the experimental observations. We propose a method for the reconstruction of the lateral atomic force field from measured data.

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