Effect of Normal Contact Vibration on Nano-Scale Friction

In this work, we investigate the effect of contact vibration on the friction of sliding single asperity contacts of different adhesion strength over a wide range of load and vibration amplitude. We convert the amplitude of vibration to its equivalent modulation force and tip-oscillation velocity. We observe a logarithmic relationship between friction and the ratio of the modulation force to the normal force and between friction and the ratio of sliding velocity to the tip-oscillation velocity. We discuss these logarithmic dependencies based on an induced corrugation of the tip-sample interaction potential.