Eur. Phys. J. B (2015) 88: 21
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2014-50584-3

Regular Article

Angular dependence of atomic friction with deformable substrate

¹ Department of Physics, Laboratory of Mechanics, Faculty of Science, University of Yaoundé 1, P.O. Box 812, Yaoundé, Cameroon
² Centre d’Excellence en Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (CETIC), University of Yaoundé 1, Yaoundé, Cameroon

^a e-mail: kdjuidje@yahoo.fr

Received: 26 August 2014
Received in final form: 1 November 2014
Published online: 14 January 2015

Abstract

The atomic stick-slip behavior of Prandtl-Tomlinson model sliding on 2D deformable substrate is studied. The influence of the shape of the interaction potential is investigated in details in the well-known phenomenon of the two-dimensional stick-slip friction. Numerical simulations are built to observe the influence of the geometry and orientation. The results show that the friction force has a maximum at r = − 0.6, this value of the shape parameter indicates a transition from a clear stick-slip at r> − 0.6 to a distorted stick-slip at r< − 0.6. We find a remarkable transition of the frictional force image pattern depending on the shape of the substrate.