Friction force differences could offer a new means for sorting and assembling nanotubes
Nanotubes and nanowires are promising building blocks for future integrated nanoelectronic and photonic circuits, nanosensors, interconnects and electro-mechanical nanodevices. But some fundamental issues remain to be resolved – among them, how to position and manipulate the tiny tubes.
Publishing in the journal Nature Materials this week, researchers from four different institutions report measuring different friction forces when a carbon nanotube slides along its axis compared to when it slides perpendicular to its axis. This friction difference has its origins in soft lateral distortion of the tubes when they slide in the transverse direction.
The findings not only could provide a better understanding of fundamental friction issues, but from a more practical standpoint, offer a new tool for assembling nanotubes into devices and clarify the forces acting on them. Asymmetries in the friction could potentially also be used in sorting nanotubes according to their chirality, a property that is now difficult to measure with other means.
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Indeed friction is one of the oldest problems in physics and one of the most important to everyday life. It is estimated that the losses in the U.S. economy due to friction total about 6 percent of the gross national product. friction is even more important to micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and nanoscale devices because these smaller systems are more affected by surface forces than large systems.
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