UItra-low friction and edge-pinning effect in large-lattice-mismatch van der Waals heterostructures

MZ Liao and P Nicolini and LJ Du and JH Yuan and SP Wang and H Yu and J Tang and P Cheng and K Watanabe and T Taniguchi and L Gu and VEP Claerbout and A Silva and D Kramer and T Polcar and R Yang and DX Shi and GY Zhang, NATURE MATERIALS, 21, 47-+ (2022).

DOI: 10.1038/s41563-021-01058-4

MoS2/graphite and MoS2/h-BN interfaces are shown to have ultra-low friction coefficients, whereas edges and interface steps mainly contribute to the friction force. Two-dimensional heterostructures are excellent platforms to realize twist-angle-independent ultra-low friction due to their weak interlayer van der Waals interactions and natural lattice mismatch. However, for finite-size interfaces, the effect of domain edges on the friction process remains unclear. Here we report the superlubricity phenomenon and the edge-pinning effect at MoS2/graphite and MoS2/hexagonal boron nitride van der Waals heterostructure interfaces. We found that the friction coefficients of these heterostructures are below 10(-6). Molecular dynamics simulations corroborate the experiments, which highlights the contribution of edges and interface steps to friction forces. Our experiments and simulations provide more information on the sliding mechanism of finite low- dimensional structures, which is vital to understand the friction process of laminar solid lubricants.

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