Friction and Adhesion of Atomically Thin Films: A Study of Few-layer Graphene
Abstract
In order to gain better insight on the fundamental mechanisms governing friction and adhesion at the nanoscale, this thesis examines the friction and adhesion properties and mechanisms on the atomically-thin material, graphene. First, through conducting load dependent measurements of friction on mechanical exfoliated graphene samples, the dependence of the friction behaviour on graphene as a function of number of graphene layers, sliding history, environmental humidity, and air exposure time were examined. A mechanism was proposed to fully explain these experimental observations. Secondly, the finite element method (FEM) was applied to investigate the adhesion between a nanoscale tip and graphene covering a silicon substrate. The simulations, contrary to prior experimental results, showed a slight increase in the pull-off force as layer number increased. In addition, it was revealed that the layer-dependent pull-off forces result from the increasing tipgraphene interactions. This work contributes to gaining better insight on the applications to the lubrication mechanisms of graphene.
Description
Keywords
Materials Science
Citation
Gong, P. (2017). Friction and Adhesion of Atomically Thin Films: A Study of Few-layer Graphene (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26226