Physicists have a pretty good idea of what to expect when friction and adhesion occur in the visible world. You jam on the brakes and your car stops. But how slippery or sticky are things that are too ...

Using a device small enough to fit on the head of a pin, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign gained new knowledge about the properties of polymer fibers at the ...

Cell velocity, or how fast a cell moves, is known to depend on how sticky the surface is beneath it, but the precise mechanisms of this relationship have remained elusive for decades. Now, researchers ...

Schematic illustration of Friction Force Microscopy (FFM). The AFM cantilever, a small diving board-like structure about 200 micrometers long, 50 micrometers wide, and 1 micrometer thick, has a sharp ...

Leibniz-Institut für Verbundwerkstoffe (IVW) has been active in the research field of fibre composites for more than 30 years, from the concept to the finished part. During this time, it has also been ...

Atomic force microscopy has the capacity to identify a range of nanoscale properties alongside topography in any environment; this is central to the power and extensive applicability of this method.

1.1 What is friction? Take this everyday example: when a coffee mug rests on a flat table, the kinetic frictional force is zero. There is no force trying to move the mug across the table, so there is ...