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Friction at Nanoscale—Self-assembled Monolayers

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Abstract

In many technical fields a contact between two surfaces is very important and often the subject of research. The numerous physical phenomena that occur at the contact between two materials indicate the complexity of the processes that take place at the macro, micro or nanoscale. Therefore, friction, lubrication and wear are the subjects that have been attracting attention for many years, especially as part of tribological investigations. The research has shown that these three components are of fundamental importance for surfaces in contact. The aim of this chapter is to primarily describe friction as a tribological component and lubrication as a process to control friction, at scales of various lengths, especially at the atomic level. At the atomic and molecular scale there are materials with the property to spontaneously assemble themselves into ordered structures and many surface properties are influenced by the formation of such a film. One of the procedures to make these ultrathin organic films of controlled thickness is to prepare self-assembled monolayers. These monolayers are described as a model system to study boundary lubrication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Niš, A. Medvedeva 14, 18000, Niš, Serbia

    Jelena Manojlović

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  1. Jelena Manojlović
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Correspondence to Jelena Manojlović .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Dermot Brabazon

  2. Physics Department, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain

    Eva Pellicer

  3. Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, Kragujevac, Serbia

    Fatima Zivic

  4. ICREA Physics Department, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain

    Jordi Sort

  5. Physics Department, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Bellatera, Spain

    Maria Dolors Baró

  6. Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, Kragujevac, Serbia

    Nenad Grujovic

  7. Institute for Materials Discovery, University College London, London, United Kingdom

    Kwang-Leong Choy

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Manojlović, J. (2018). Friction at Nanoscale—Self-assembled Monolayers. In: Brabazon, D., et al. Commercialization of Nanotechnologies–A Case Study Approach. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56979-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56979-6_7

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