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Electrotunable friction with ionic liquid lubricants

Nature Materials volume 21, pages 848–858 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Room-temperature ionic liquids and their mixtures with organic solvents as lubricants open a route to control lubricity at the nanoscale via electrical polarization of the sliding surfaces. Electronanotribology is an emerging field that has a potential to realize in situ control of friction—that is, turning the friction on and off on demand. However, fulfilling its promise needs more research. Here we provide an overview of this emerging research area, from its birth to the current state, reviewing the main achievements in non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations and experiments using atomic force microscopes and surface force apparatus. We also present a discussion of the challenges that need to be solved for future applications of electrotunable friction.

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Fig. 1: Experimental and simulation approaches to study electrotunable friction with lubricating nanoscale RTIL films.
Fig. 2: Effect of surface polarization on ionic liquid film structure.
Fig. 3: Mechanism of electrotunable friction in nanoscale RTIL films.
Fig. 4: Effect of film composition on friction.
Fig. 5: From fundamentals of electrotunable friction to applications.

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Acknowledgements

F.B, A.A.K. and M.U. thank the Leverhulme Trust for the award of research grant number RPG-2016-223. M.U. acknowledges the financial support of the Israel Science Foundation under grant number 1141/18 and the binational programme of the National Science Foundation of China and Israel Science Foundation under grant number 3191/19. S.P. acknowledges support from the European Research Council under grant number 676861. We also thank R. Bennewitz for sharing high-resolution versions Figs. 2a and 3b.

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  1. Department of Chemistry, Molecular Sciences Research Hub, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Fernando Bresme & Alexei A. Kornyshev

  2. Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Susan Perkin

  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

    Michael Urbakh

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F.B., A.A.K., S.P. and M.U. conceived the idea of writing this Review, devised its general structure, designed the figures and contributed to the writing.

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Bresme, F., Kornyshev, A.A., Perkin, S. et al. Electrotunable friction with ionic liquid lubricants. Nat. Mater. 21, 848–858 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01273-7

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