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Superlubricity in centimetres-long double-walled carbon nanotubes under ambient conditions

Nature Nanotechnology volume 8, pages 912–916 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Friction and wear are two main causes of mechanical energy dissipation and component failure, especially in micro/nanomechanical systems with large surface-to-volume ratios. In the past decade there has been an increasing level of research interest regarding superlubricity1,2,3,4,5, a phenomenon, also called structural superlubricity, in which friction almost vanishes between two incommensurate solid surfaces2,3. However, all experimental structural superlubricity has been obtained on the microscale or nanoscale, and predominantly under high vacuum. Here, we show that superlubricity can be realized in centimetres-long double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs) under ambient conditions. Centimetres-long inner shells can be pulled out continuously from such nanotubes, with an intershell friction lower than 1 nN that is independent of nanotube length. The shear strength of the DWCNTs is only several pascals, four orders of magnitude lower than the lowest reported value in CNTs and graphite. The perfect structure of the ultralong DWCNTs used in our experiments is essential for macroscale superlubricity.

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Figure 1: Observation of inner-shell sliding in ultralong DWCNTs.
Figure 2: Process of pulling out the inner shell from a DWCNT.
Figure 3: Friction and dissipation energy of three DWCNTs.
Figure 4: Analysis of intershell friction of DWCNTs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Foundation for the National Basic Research Program of China (Program Number 2011CB932602 and 2013CB934200) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 51372132 and 60925003). The authors thank Dezheng Wang and Wengen Ou-Yang for helpful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Beijing Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Reaction Engineering and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Rufan Zhang, Huanhuan Xie, Qiang Zhang, Weizhong Qian & Fei Wei

  2. Key Laboratory for the Physics & Chemistry of Nanodevices, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Zhiyuan Ning & Qing Chen

  3. Center for Nano and Micro Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Yingying Zhang, Quanshui Zheng & Huanhuan Xie

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  1. Rufan Zhang
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  4. Quanshui Zheng
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  5. Qing Chen
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Contributions

F.W. proposed and supervised the project. R.F.Z. designed and performed the experiments and wrote the manuscript. Y.Y.Z. co-supervised the project and designed the outline of the manuscript. Z.Y.N. participated in most experiments. Q.S.Z., Q.S., Q.Z. and Q.W.Z. participated in data analysis and manuscript preparation. H.H.X. participated in the synthesis of ultralong CNTs.

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Correspondence to Yingying Zhang or Fei Wei.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Zhang, R., Ning, Z., Zhang, Y. et al. Superlubricity in centimetres-long double-walled carbon nanotubes under ambient conditions. Nature Nanotech 8, 912–916 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.217

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