Tuning Electronic Friction in Structural Superlubric Schottky Junctions

Friction at sliding interfaces, even in the atomistically smooth limit, can proceed through many energy dissipation channels, such as phononic and electronic excitation. These processes are often entangled and difficult to distinguish, eliminate, and control, especially in the presence of wear. Structural superlubricity (SSL) is a wear-free state with ultralow friction that closes most of the dissipation channels, except for electronic friction, which raises a critical concern of how to effectively eliminate and control such a channel. In this work, we construct a Schottky junction between a microscale graphite flake and a doped silicon substrate in the SSL state to address the issue and achieve wide-range (by 6×), continuous, and reversible electronic friction tuning by changing the bias voltage. No wear or oxidation at the sliding interfaces was observed, and the ultralow friction coefficient indicated that electronic friction dominated the friction tuning. The mechanism of electronic friction is elucidated by perturbative finite element analysis, which shows that migration of the space-charge region leads to drift and diffusion of charge carriers at Schottky junctions, resulting in energy dissipation.