Ultrasound induced lubricity in microscopic contact

A physical effect of ultrasound induced lubricity is reported. We studied the dynamic friction dependence on out-of-plane ultrasonic vibration of a sample using friction force microscopy and a scanning probe technique, the ultrasonic force microscope, which can probe the dynamics of the tip-sample elastic contact at a submicrosecond scale. The results show that friction vanishes when the tip-surface contact breaks for part of the out-of-plane vibration cycle. Moreover, the friction force reduces well before such a break, and this reduction does not depend on the normal load. This suggests the presence on the surface of a layer with viscoelastic behavior. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.