Multiscaling behavior of atomic-scale friction

M. Jannesar, T. Jamali, A. Sadeghi, S. M. S. Movahed, G. Fesler, E. Meyer, B. Khoshnevisan, and G. R. Jafari
Phys. Rev. E 95, 062802 – Published 19 June 2017

Abstract

The scaling behavior of friction between rough surfaces is a well-known phenomenon. It might be asked whether such a scaling feature also exists for friction at an atomic scale despite the absence of roughness on atomically flat surfaces. Indeed, other types of fluctuations, e.g., thermal and instrumental fluctuations, become appreciable at this length scale and can lead to scaling behavior of the measured atomic-scale friction. We investigate this using the lateral force exerted on the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM) when the tip is dragged over the clean NaCl (001) surface in ultra-high vacuum at room temperature. Here the focus is on the fluctuations of the lateral force profile rather than its saw-tooth trend; we first eliminate the trend using the singular value decomposition technique and then explore the scaling behavior of the detrended data, which contains only fluctuations, using the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis. The results demonstrate a scaling behavior for the friction data ranging from 0.2 to 2 nm with the Hurst exponent H=0.61±0.02 at a 1σ confidence interval. Moreover, the dependence of the generalized Hurst exponent, h(q), on the index variable q confirms the multifractal or multiscaling behavior of the nanofriction data. These results prove that fluctuation of nanofriction empirical data has a multifractal behavior which deviates from white noise.

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  • Received 5 August 2016
  • Revised 10 May 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.95.062802

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied PhysicsStatistical Physics & Thermodynamics

Authors & Affiliations

M. Jannesar1, T. Jamali2, A. Sadeghi3,4, S. M. S. Movahed3, G. Fesler5, E. Meyer5, B. Khoshnevisan1, and G. R. Jafari3

  • 1Department of Physics, Kashan University, Kashan 8731751167, Iran
  • 2School of Physics, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), P.O. Box 19395-5531, Tehran, Iran
  • 3Department of Physics, Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Evin, Tehran 19839, Iran
  • 4School of Nano Science, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran 19395-5531, Iran
  • 5Departement Physik, Universität Basel, Klingelbergstr. 82, 4056 Basel, Switzerland

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Issue

Vol. 95, Iss. 6 — June 2017

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