Electronic Roughness (IMAGE)
Caption
On the macroscale, adding fluorine atoms to carbon-based materials makes for water-repellant, non-stick surfaces, such as Teflon. However, on the nanoscale, adding fluorine to graphene had been reported to vastly increase the friction experienced when sliding against the material. Through a combination of physical experiments and atomistic simulations, a Penn team has discovered the mechanism behind this surprising finding. Using atomic force microscopy, they found that the fluorine atoms add "electronic roughness" to the graphene; these graphs show a comparison between the energy corrugation of graphene (above) and fluorinated graphene (below).
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University of Pennsylvania
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