We study the van der Waals (vdW) interaction between a polarizable particle and grounded conducting corrugated surface. For sinusoidal corrugations, one knows that, under action of lateral vdW force, an isotropic is always attracted to nearest corrugation peak, with such behavior called in present paper as peak regime. Here, considering anisotropic particle, making analytical calculations valid...

In this work, parameters are developed for a polarizable force field for linear alcohol models, using our previously described QM/MM approach to attribute condensed-phase polarizabilities. Starting from the non-polarizable GROMOS 53A5/53A6 parameter set, van der Waals and Coulomb interaction parameters are optimized to reproduce pure-liquid (thermodynamic, dielectric and transport) properties, ...

We find that the 'jump-into-contact' of the cantilever in the atomic force microscope (AFM) is caused by an inherent instability in the motion of the AFM cantilever. The analysis is based on a simple model of the cantilever moving in a nonlinear force field. We show that the 'jump-into-contact' distance can be used to find the interaction of the cantilever tip with the surface. In the specific ...

Adhesion molecules, often thought to be acting by a 'lock and key' mechanism, have been thought to control the adhesion of cells. While there is no doubt that a coating of adhesion molecules such as fibronectin on a surface affects cell adhesion, this paper aims to show that such surface contamination is only one factor in the equation. Starting from the baseline idea that van der Waals force i...

We have developed a hygromorphic metal oxide actuator using an electrochemical method to produce a superhydrophilic freestanding nano-capillary forest of titanium oxide with a high aspect ratio (~80). This metal oxide film has an inhomogeneous initial gap at the top and bottom surfaces between the tubes due to flexure during fabrication. The actuation mechanism is as follows. First, when a drop...

Interand intra-molecular forces are the driving forces responsible for the creation of an interface between a microorganism and a naturally occurring mineral or man-made material. We have used atomic force microscopy to directly measure forces between a Staphylococcus aureus bacterium and each of two materials (silica and polystyrene) in an electrolyte solution. Force “spectra” were collected b...

Magnetic feedback chemical force microscopy (MF-CFM) was used to map the complete force profile between hydroxyland carboxyl-terminated self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) in aqueous solution. The snap-to-contact and snap-out instabilities intrinsic to force-displacement measurements made with weak spring constant cantilevers were eliminated by using a cantilever with an attached magnetic particle...

Using atomic force microscopy (AFM), supported by semicontinuum numerical simulations, we determine the effect of tip-subsurface van der Waals interactions on nanoscale friction and adhesion for suspended and silicon dioxide supported graphene of varying thickness. While pull-off force measurements reveal no layer number dependence for supported graphene, suspended graphene exhibits an increase...