Lubricity of graphene on rough Au surfaces

TL;DR

This study investigates how graphene reduces friction on rough gold surfaces in nanofriction, highlighting its potential as a lubricant but also its limitations due to detachment and stability issues.

Contribution

It provides molecular dynamics insights into graphene's lubricating effects on rough gold surfaces and identifies key factors affecting its performance.

Findings

Graphene reduces friction and heat dissipation by over an order of magnitude.

Graphene nanoribbons face detachment and displacement issues at the interface.

Stretched graphene sheets can achieve low friction but may lack structural stability.

Abstract

This paper studies the lubricating properties of graphene on randomly rough Au surfaces in sliding nanofriction using molecular dynamics. It is shown that the friction and the consequent heat dissipation decrease more than an order of magnitude in the presence of graphene. The performance of graphene nanoribbons as lubricants is, however, limited because of detachment and displacement at the interface. Sliding contacts lubricated with a stretched graphene sheet exhibit low friction, but possibly also low structural stability. This suggests that the graphene-substrate adherence could be crucial for the lubricity of two-dimensional materials on rough metal surfaces.