Towards an understanding of friction at electrodes on the atomic scale

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Despite of the fact that in everyday life friction often occurs at wet surfaces, and therefore in the presence of an interfacial potential drop, the number of reports on fundamental studies of friction on the atomic scale is limited. For fundamental studies, friction measurements on electrode surfaces (which can be prepared similarly clean and well defined as in UHV) also offer the advantage that the surface can quickly and reversibly be modified with adsorbed monolayers or multilayers. In this project, further insight into the mechanism of friction shall be gained by examining the effect of different kinds of adsorbates (cations and anions, organic adsorbates, tensides) and also their orientation on friction as studied by atomically resolved friction force microscopy on the one hand. On the other hand, theoretical models of friction shall be developed; their results shall be compared to the measurements. Theory shall also help in designing appropriate experiments.