Nonlinear friction characteristics between silica surfaces in high pH solution

Molecular-scale characteristics of friction forces between silica particles and silica wafers in aqueous solutions of the normal (pH 5.6) and high pH (pH 10.6) are investigated, using the lateral force measuring procedure of the atomic force microscope (AFM). Various significant differences of friction characteristics between solutions of normal and high pH's are found. In the case of solutions of normal pH, the friction force increases linearly with increasing loading force, as the Amonton's law for solid bodies indicates. However, in the case of high pH solutions, the increasing rate with the loading force is considerably reduced in the low loading region, but the value increases abruptly above a critical loading force to overcome the magnitude of friction force of normal pH above the region of very high loading. It is very interesting to know that this nonlinear force curve at high pH is independent of the atomic-scale roughness of surfaces, although the magnitude of friction is greatly influenced by the roughness in the case of normal pH. The reason why the friction at high pH is independent of the surface roughness is postulated to be due to the hairy-like layer formed on the silica surface. The existence of hairy-like layers at high pH is proven directly by the dynamic method of normal force measurements with AFM and the thickness is estimated to be at least ca. 1.3 nm. Copyright © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

PH dependence of friction forces between silica surfaces in solutions

The pH dependence of the friction between a silica particle and a silica wafer was investigated using lateral force microscopy. Measurements were done in the range of 3.6less-than over equal topHless-than over equal to10.6 and the effect of high loading force was also examined. It is found that the friction is independent of the pH of solutions and increases linearly with the applied load, when the pH is between 3.6 and 8.6. On the other hand, once the pH is above 9.0, the friction becomes extremely small and the dependence on the applied load becomes nonlinear. It is postulated that this transition is due to the development of a gel layer composed of polymer-like segments of silicilic acid anchored on the surface; at the lower applied load, this layer acts as a boundary lubricant between the surfaces, but, at the higher applied load, the entanglements of these segments and more direct contact between two solid surfaces leads to the increase of the friction. The effects found here are expected to play an important role in elucidating the basic mechanism of the planarization process of silica wafers

Drag moderation by the melting of an ice surface in contact with water

We report measurements of the effects of a melting ice surface on the hydrodynamic drag of ice-shell-metal-core spheres free falling in water at a Reynolds of number Re∼2×104–3×105 and demonstrate that the melting surface induces the early onset of the drag crisis, thus reducing the hydrodynamic drag by more than 50%. Direct visualization of the flow pattern demonstrates the key role of surface melting. Our observations support the hypothesis that the drag reduction is due to the disturbance of the viscous boundary layer by the mass transfer from the melting ice surface

Leidenfrost vapour layer moderation of the drag crisis and trajectories of superhydrophobic and hydrophilic spheres falling in water

We investigate the dynamic effects of a Leidenfrost vapour layer sustained on the surface of heated steel spheres during free fall in water. We find that a stable vapour layer sustained on the textured superhydrophobic surface of spheres falling through 95 °C water can reduce the hydrodynamic drag by up to 75% and stabilize the sphere trajectory for the Reynolds number between 104 and 106, spanning the drag crisis in the absence of the vapour layer. For hydrophilic spheres under the same conditions, the transition to drag reduction and trajectory stability occurs abruptly at a temperature different from the static Leidenfrost point. The observed drag reduction effects are attributed to the disruption of the viscous boundary layer by the vapour layer whose thickness depends on the water temperature. Both the drag reduction and the trajectory stabilization effects are expected to have significant implications for development of sustainable vapour layer based technologies

Effects of cleaning procedures of silica wafers on their friction characteristics

Silicon wafers with thermal silicon oxide layers were cleaned and hydrophilized by three different methods: (1) the remote chemical analysis (RCA) wet cleaning by use of ammonia and hydrogen peroxide mixture solutions, (2) water-vapor plasma cleaning, and (3) UV/ozone combined cleaning. All procedures were found to remove effectively organic contaminations on wafers and gave identical characteristics of the contact angle, the surface roughness and the normal force interactions, measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM). However, it is found that wafers cleaned by the RCA method have several times larger friction coefficients than those cleaned by the plasma and UV/ozone methods. The difference was explained by the atomic-scale topological difference induced during the RCA cleaning. This study reveals the lateral force microscopy as a very sensitive method to detect the microstructure of surfaces. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved