Kinks and nanofriction: Structural phases in few-atom chains
Name
PhysRevResearch.2.013380.pdf
Size
2.71 MB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
bc0e0b3c2ded1a76c225dcc1b03831d6
Author(s)
Gangloff, Dorian A.
Bylinskii, Alexei
Vuletic, Vladan
Date Issued
March 2020
Journal
Physical Review Research
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Citation
Gangloff, Dorian A., Alexei Bylinskii, and Vladan Vuletic. "Kinks and nanofriction: Structural phases in few-atom chains." Physical Review Research, 2, 1 (2020): 013380.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The frictional dynamics of interacting surfaces under forced translation are critically dependent on lattice commensurability. The highly nonlinear system of an elastic atomic chain sliding on an incommensurate periodic potential exhibits topological defects, known as kinks, that govern the frictional and translational dynamics. Performing experiments in a trapped-ion friction emulator, we observe two distinct structural and frictional phases: a commensurate high-friction phase where the ions stick-slip simultaneously over the lattice, and an incommensurate low-friction phase where the propagation of a kink breaks that simultaneity. We experimentally track the kink's propagation with atom-by-atom and sublattice site resolution and show that its velocity increases with commensurability. Our results elucidate the commensurate-incommensurate transition and the connection between the appearance of kinks and the reduction of friction in a finite system, with important consequences for controlling friction at nanocontacts.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
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Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 unported license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.013380
