Current News

1st Announcement of the 6th ESF Nanotribology Workshop in Santa Margherita di Pula, Sardinia (Italy), May 13-16, 2007

Hotel Flamingo, 09010 Pula (CA) Tel: +39 070 9208361-2-3 Fax: +39 070 9208359 http://www.hotelflamingo.it

This is the 1st announcement of the 6th ESF Nanotribology Workshop in Santa Margherita, Sardinia, Italy. The workshop will be held in the Hotel Flamingo. This workshop will be organized in the same spirit like the other workshops (2002 Portovenere, 2003 Antalya, 2004 Sesimbra, 2005 Porquerolles, and 2006 Antalya). ESF-NATRIBO project partners can present their recent results and some invited speakers from overseas will join as well. The participants will be financially supported. However, the number of participants is limited. Thus, the acceptance of contributed talks will be made by the steering committee of the ESF-NATRIBO program.

The deadline for abstract submission is March 15, 2007. The notification of acceptance will be middle of April. The registration will be online at the beginning of January, 2007.

Atomic-Scale Control of Friction by Actuation of Nanometer-Sized Contacts

Authors: Anisoara Socoliuc, Enrico Gnecco, Sabine Maier, Oliver Pfeiffer, Alexis Baratoff, Roland Bennewitz, Ernst Meyer

The above article will be published by Science Magazine, vol. 313, no. 5784. Read the following abstract for further information:

Abstract: Stiction and wear are demanding problems in nanoelectromechanical devices, because of their large surface-to-volume ratios and the inapplicability of traditional liquid lubricants. An efficient way to switch friction on and off at the atomic scale is achieved by exciting the mechanical resonances of the sliding system perpendicular to the contact plane. The resulting variations of the interaction energy reduce friction below 10 piconewtons in a finite range of excitation and load, without any noticeable wear. Without actuation, atomic stick-slip motion, which leads to dissipation, is observed in the same range. Even if the normal oscillations require energy to actuate, our technique represents a valuable way to minimize energy dissipation in nanocontacts.

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