What is Superlubricity?
Superlubricity is a special material phenomenon in which friction between two materials drops close to zero. True zero friction is not thermodynamically permissible, but superlubricity gets close. This superlubricity phenomenon occurs when two surfaces have crystal lattices which are in incommensurate contact, meaning that the crystal arrangement is such that only a tiny minority of the atoms on the surface come in contact with the opposing surface, generating a vanishingly small amount of friction. Thus far, superlubricity has been observed most prominently with graphite, though it has also been observed briefly between mica sheets or between a tungsten needle and a silicon or graphite surface. Superlubricity was discovered when physicists studied, at very high precision, the friction force between crystal surfaces. When there is a “lattice mismatch” between two such surfaces, friction can depart almost entirely. This lattice mismatch is achieved simply by playing with the orientation
