Friction, Adhesion and Lubrication of Nanoscale Mechanical Systems

摘要

The equipment purchased by this grant consisted of a variable temperature, ultra-high vacuum compatible scanning tunneling microscope. During the 12 month period in which the grant was in effect, we designed and assembled an ultra-high vacuum chamber to house the microscope, and added this chamber to an existing system. The construction period now complete, and a series of measurements have commenced. These include measurements of the uptake rate of the lubricant TBPP on Fe as a function of temperature, and a series of measurements of the nanomechanical properties of a number of potential lubricants for MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) applications by means of a combined quartz microbalance/scanning tunneling microscopy technique.