Flexible Superlubricity Unveiled in Sidewinding Motion of Individual Polymeric Chains
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BORIS DOI
Date of Publication
2022
Publication Type
Article
Division/Institute
Author
Vilhena, J. G. | |
Pawlak, Rémy | |
D’Astolfo, Philipp | |
Liu, Xunshan | |
Gnecco, Enrico | |
Kisiel, Marcin | |
Glatzel, Thilo | |
Pérez, Rúben | |
Baratoff, Alexis | |
Prampolini, Giacomo | |
Meyer, Ernst |
Series
Physical review letters
ISSN or ISBN (if monograph)
0031-9007
Publisher
American Physical Society
Language
English
Publisher DOI
Description
A combination of low temperature atomic force microcopy and molecular dynamic simulations is used to demonstrate that soft designer molecules realize a sidewinding motion when dragged over a gold surface. Exploiting their longitudinal flexibility, pyrenylene chains are indeed able to lower diffusion energy barriers via on-surface directional locking and molecular strain. The resulting ultralow friction reaches values on the order of tens of pN reported so far only for rigid chains sliding on an incommensurate surface. Therefore, we demonstrate how molecular flexibility can be harnessed to realize complex nanomotion while retaining a superlubric character. This is in contrast with the paradigm guiding the design of most superlubric nanocontacts (mismatched rigid contacting surfaces).
File(s)
File | File Type | Format | Size | License | Publisher/Copright statement | Content | |
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PhysRevLett.128.216102.pdf | text | Adobe PDF | 1.31 MB | published |