2022/10/18 by Niklas A. Weber, Weber, Niklas A., Miru Lee +11
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Adhesion, Friction, and Surface Interactions #FOS: Physical sciences #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2210.09677
openalex publication_date 2022/10/18 · openalex created_date 2023/02/13 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We conducted lateral force microscopy measurements on seven [LaMnO3]m/[SrMnO3]n superlattices with varied layer thicknesses. We observe that the friction forces and the friction coefficients initially increase with increasing LaMnO3 top layer thickness, followed by saturation when the top layer thickness exceeds a few nanometers. These observations clearly demonstrate that sliding friction is affected by sub-surface material properties to a depth of several nanometers and is not just determined by dynamics in the contact interface. We argue that the sub-surface dissipated energy is governed by damping in the elastically strained volume below the AFM tip, an effect which we estimate via thermoelasticity. The absence of a correlation between friction and the thermal resistivity of our superlattices shows furthermore that high-frequency phonons and heat conduction do not play a role in determining friction. Our observations thus demonstrate that friction can be tailored by sub-surface material properties.