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Electric field controlled superlubricity of fullerene-based host—guest assembly

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Abstract

Controlling friction by the electric field is a promising way to improve the tribological performance of a variety of movable mechanical systems. In this work, the assembly structure and microscale superlubricity of a host—guest assembly are effectively controlled by the electric field. With the help of the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) technique, the host—guest assembly structures constructed by the co-assembly of fullerene derivative (Fluorene-C60) with macrocycles (4B2A and 3B2A) are explicitly characterized. Combined with density functional theory (DFT), the distinct different assembly behaviors of fullerene derivatives are revealed at different probe biases, which is attributed to the molecular polarity of the fullerene derivative. Through the control on the adsorption behavior, the friction coefficient of host—guest assembly is demonstrated to be controllable in the electric field by using atomic force microscopy (AFM). At positive probe bias, the friction coefficient of the host—guest assembly is significantly reduced and achieves superlubricity (μmin = 0.0049). The efforts not only help us gain insight into the host—guest assembly mechanism controlled by the electric field, but also promote the further application of fullerene in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS).

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2017YFA0205000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51875303 and 21972031), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDB36000000).

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Author notes

  1. Shanchao Tan, Hongyu Shi, and **n Du contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, Bei**g, 100084, China

    Shanchao Tan, Hongyu Shi, Kunpeng Wang & Yuhong Liu

  2. CAS Key Laboratory of Standardization and Measurement for Nanotechnology, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST), Bei**g, 100190, China

    Shanchao Tan, Hongyu Shi, Ke Deng & Qingdao Zeng

  3. College of Chemical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Lab of Biomass-based Green Fuels and Chemicals, Nan**g Forestry University, Nan**g, 210037, China

    **n Du & Haijun Xu

  4. Key Laboratory of Organosilicon Chemistry and Material Technology of Ministry of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, 310012, China

    Junhua Wan

  5. Center of Materials Science and Optoelectonics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100049, China

    Hongyu Shi & Qingdao Zeng

Authors
  1. Shanchao Tan
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Correspondence to Ke Deng, Qingdao Zeng or Yuhong Liu.

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Tan, S., Shi, H., Du, X. et al. Electric field controlled superlubricity of fullerene-based host—guest assembly. Nano Res. 16, 583–588 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4641-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4641-7

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