Abstract
A sheared microscopic graphite mesa retracts spontaneously to minimize interfacial energy. Using an optical knife-edge technique, we report first measurements of the speeds of such self-retracting motion (SRM) from the range at room temperature to at . This remarkably high speed is comparable with the upper theoretical limit found for sliding interfaces exhibiting structural superlubricity. We observe a strong temperature dependence of SRM speed which is consistent with a thermally activated mechanism of translational motion that involves successive pinning and depinning events at interfacial defects. The activation energy for depinning is estimated to be 0.1–1 eV.
- Received 4 January 2013
- Publisher error corrected 24 June 2013
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.255504
© 2013 American Physical Society
Corrections
24 June 2013
Erratum
Publisher’s Note: Observation of High-Speed Microscale Superlubricity in Graphite [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 255504 (2013)]
Jiarui Yang, Ze Liu, Francois Grey, Zhiping Xu, Xide Li, Yilun Liu, Michael Urbakh, Yao Cheng, and Quanshui Zheng
Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 029902 (2013)
Synopsis
Slip Sliding Away
Published 20 June 2013
Thin layers of graphite can slide on a surface at speeds up to , in a quasifrictionless regime called superlubrication.
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