Superlubricity tagged posts

Mechanical properties of atomically thin boron nitride and the role of interlayer interactions. Nature Communications, 2017; 8: 15815 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15815

A stretchy miracle material has been discovered that could be used to create highly resistant smart devices and scratch-proof paint for cars. Led by Dr Elton Santos from the University’s School of Mathematics and Physics, an international team have found superlubricity in a few layers of graphene – a concept where friction vanishes or very nearly vanishes. They also found that a few layers of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) are as strong as diamond but are more flexible, cheaper and lighter...

Visualized model of a superlubricity (low-friction) system: gold = nanodiamond particles; red = graphene nanoscroll; green = underlying graphene on silica; black = diamond-like carbon surface. Credit: Image courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory

Friction hampers the movement of all mechanical parts, including engines for transportation. At the Center for Nanoscale Materials, scientists built a system with virtually no friction. The system wraps graphene flakes around nanodiamonds that then roll between a diamond-like carbon-surface and graphene on silica. Such hard ball bearings wrapped in slippery Teflon(R) tissue paper rolling between 2 surfaces reduces the friction to almost zero.

Creating a low-friction situation has the potential for substantial cost savings because friction accounts...