Theoretical studies of superlubricity

Abstract

In simulations,materials properties and boundary conditions can be varied at will, and the resulting changes in both macroscopic variables and the dynamics of individual atoms can be observed. This allows one to study systematically the effects of many different factors on friction and wear at the nano-scale. In this chapter, we describe how to set up meaningful simulations in the context of nanotribology and summarize some key results obtained so far.