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Robust microscale superlubricity in graphite/hexagonal boron nitride layered heterojunctions

Nature Materials volume 17, pages 894–899 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Structural superlubricity is a fascinating tribological phenomenon, in which the lateral interactions between two incommensurate contacting surfaces are effectively cancelled resulting in ultralow sliding friction. Here we report the experimental realization of robust superlubricity in microscale monocrystalline heterojunctions, which constitutes an important step towards the macroscopic scale-up of superlubricity. The results for interfaces between graphite and hexagonal boron nitride clearly demonstrate that structural superlubricity persists even when the aligned contact sustains external loads under ambient conditions. The observed frictional anisotropy in the heterojunctions is found to be orders of magnitude smaller than that measured for their homogeneous counterparts. Atomistic simulations reveal that the underlying frictional mechanisms in the two cases originate from completely different dynamical regimes. Our results are expected to be of a general nature and should be applicable to other van der Waals heterostructures.

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Fig. 1: Experimental set-up.
Fig. 2: Rotational anisotropy of the measured friction of a graphite/hBN heterojunction.
Fig. 3: Simulated rotational anisotropy of the friction of a graphite/hBN heterojunction.
Fig. 4: Effects of external conditions on the friction of misaligned graphite/hBN interfaces.

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Acknowledgements

Q.Z. acknowledges the financial support from the NSFC (Grant no. 11572173), the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant no. 2013CB934200), the SRFDP (Grant no. 20130002110043) and the Cyrus Tang Foundation. M.M. acknowledges the financial support from the Thousand Young Talents Program (Grant no. 61050200116) and the NSFC (Grant no. 11632009 and 11772168). Y.M.S. and M.M. thank L. Ge from the NT-MDT Beijing Office and P. Cheng from Oxford Instruments China for their help in experimental device support. O.H. is grateful for financial support of the Israel Science Foundation under Grant no. 1586/17, the Lise Meitner Minerva Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Tel Aviv University, and the Naomi Foundation via the 2017 Kadar Award. M.U. acknowledges financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Grant no. BA 1008/21-2, and the COST Action MP1303. D.M. acknowledges the fellowship from the Sackler Center for Computational Molecular and Materials Science at Tel Aviv University, and from the Tel Aviv University Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Yiming Song & Ming Ma

  2. Center for Nano and Micro Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Yiming Song, Ming Ma & Quanshui Zheng

  3. Department of Physical Chemistry, School of Chemistry, The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences and The Sackler Center for Computational Molecular and Materials Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Davide Mandelli, Oded Hod & Michael Urbakh

  4. Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Quanshui Zheng

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  1. Yiming Song
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Contributions

M.M., O.H., M.U. and Q.Z. conceived the original idea behind this study. M.M. and Q.Z. designed the experimental aspects of the study, Y.S. performed the experiments and Y.S. and M.M. analysed the experimental data with contributions from all the authors. D.M., O.H. and M.U. designed and analysed the simulations. D.M. wrote the code and conducted the simulations. All authors contributed to the writing of this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ming Ma or Quanshui Zheng.

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Supplementary Figures 1–19, Supplementary Tables 1–2, Supplementary References 1–29

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Song, Y., Mandelli, D., Hod, O. et al. Robust microscale superlubricity in graphite/hexagonal boron nitride layered heterojunctions. Nature Mater 17, 894–899 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0144-z

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