The quartz crystal microbalance as a nanotribology technique

Abstract

The quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) technique is a powerful probe of interfacial phenomena that has been successfully employed to investigate the sliding friction of objects of nanoscopic size subject to lateral speeds as large as a few m/s. After a description of the quartz acoustics, the chapter presents the more common circuits used to drive the QCM and discusses the main problems in the application of such a technique to the study of nanotribolgoy; the quality of the surface electrodes and surface contamination.