Characterising the nanoscale kinetic friction using force-equilibrium and energy-conservation models with optical manipulation

SiC nanowires were manipulated under an optic microscope to investigate the nanoscale friction between nanowires and a flat substrate. The deflection of the nanowires was modeled as that of an Euler-Bernoulli beam subjected to a uniformly distributed load. A simple formula was developed to calculate the kinetic friction from the normalized deflections at the two ends of a nanowire. The frictional force per unit area determined ranges from 0.18-0.51 MPa. Both experimental and simulated results demonstrated that the proposed approach was reliable. The results were also compared with those estimated using an energy-conservation model, which produced a frictional force ranging from 0.21-0.62 MPa. The results obtained from the two different methods are in excellent agreement.