Ultrasonic Machining at the Nanometer Scale

Ultrasonic Machining at the Nanometer Scale

Experiments on Highly Oriented Pyrolytic Graphite (HOPG) demonstrate that ultrasonic-assisted actuation with the tip of an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) cantilever can induce stacking modifications and folding of triangular-shaped HOPG surface flakes. We have generated permanent displacements of buried dislocations that require stacking changes of extended graphene layers by repeatedly scanning...

Wetting Properties at Nanometer Scale

The proposed chapter reviews a series of experimental techniques which enable the accurate quantitative study of wetting properties. The introductive part presents some of the many phenomena and processes influenced by wetting, underlining the importance of understanding the fundamental science involved. A few historical considerations about the quantitative study of wetting and related phenome...

Piezoelectric nanogenerators—Harvesting ambient mechanical energy at the nanometer scale

Experimental observation of nonlinear ionic transport at the nanometer scale.

Nanometer-sized electrodes are used to probe the transport of ions in liquid by monitoring heterogeneous electrochemical reactions. We observe pronounced nonlinearities of ion flux versus concentration when transport is localized within a region smaller than 10 nm. We show that these observations cannot be explained using conventional continuum, mean-field descriptions of ionic transport. The d...

Imaging high-speed friction at the nanometer scale

Friction is a complicated phenomenon involving nonlinear dynamics at different length and time scales. Understanding its microscopic origin requires methods for measuring force on nanometer-scale asperities sliding at velocities reaching centimetres per second. Despite enormous advances in experimental technique, this combination of small length scale and high velocity remain elusive. We presen...