Sliding Friction of Compressing Xenon Monolayers

Abstract

Friction at the atomic scale is believed to arise from the excitation of atomic lattice vibrations (phonons), as well as electronic excitations when electrically conducting materials are involved. We present here an extension of previously reported work on a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) study of Xe monolayers and bilayers sliding on Ag(111) (see Phys. Rev. Lett., vol.76, p.803 (1996)). In particular, we apply a simple phonon model of friction to the monolayer compression regime and observe reasonable agreement with the data.