Shear of liquid films confined to molecular dimensions

Motivated by recent experiments on the sliding of two surfaces separated by ultrathin films of simple organic liquids, we analyse the shear and resulting dynamics of the confined materials. Our results indicate that the effective viscosity of shear-melted thin films of such liquids is low, and can account for several features of the experimental results, including the observation of stick-slip effects up to high shear rates. Our analysis also points to the origin of the frictional dissipation between sliding surfaces separated by thin films of simple liquids. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.