Towards an understanding of friction at electrodes on the atomic scale

尽管在日常生活中，摩擦经常发生在潮湿的表面上，因此在界面电位下降的情况下，关于原子尺度上摩擦的基础研究的报告数量有限。对于基础研究，电极表面的摩擦测量(可以制备出与超高电压类似的清洁和清晰的表面)还提供了这样的优势，即表面可以快速和可逆地被吸附的单分子层或多层膜修饰。在这个项目中，一方面，通过原子分辨摩擦力显微镜研究不同类型的吸附物(阳离子和阴离子、有机吸附物、藤苷)以及它们的取向对摩擦的影响，以进一步深入了解摩擦的机理。另一方面，应建立摩擦的理论模型，并将其结果与测量结果进行比较。理论也将有助于设计适当的实验。

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.