We conducted experiments in which steel and silicon or quartz are clamped together. Even with the smallest tangential forces we could apply, we always found reproducible sliding motions on the nanometer scale. The velocities we study are thousands of times smaller than in previous investigations. The samples first slide and then lock up even when external forces hold steady. One might call the result “slip-stick” friction. We account for the results with a phenomenological theory that results from considering the rate and state theory of dynamic friction at low velocities. Our measurements lead us to set the instantaneous coefficient of static friction that normally enters rate and state theories to zero.
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