Designing metainterfaces with specified friction laws

Many devices, including touchscreens and robotic hands, involve frictional contacts. Optimizing these devices requires fine control of the interface’s friction law. We lack systematic methods to create dry contact interfaces whose frictional behavior satisfies preset specifications. We propose a generic surface design strategy to prepare dry rough interfaces that have predefined relationships between normal and friction forces. Such metainterfaces circumvent the usual multiscale challenge of tribology by considering simplified surface topographies as assemblies of spherical asperities. Optimizing the individual asperities’ heights enables specific friction laws to be targeted. Through various centimeter-scaled elastomer-glass metainterfaces, we illustrate three types of achievable friction laws, including linear laws with a specified friction coefficient and unusual nonlinear laws. This design strategy represents a scale- and material-independent, chemical-free pathway toward energy-saving and adaptable smart interfaces.