[2Ep01-05] Toward Multiscale Tribology Bridging Nano- and Macro-scale: Science of Friction Division's Session

[2Ep03] A new method for measuring adsorption and friction properties of additive polymer molecules by vertical-objective-type ellipsometric microscopy

*Kenji Fukuzawa¹, Yuxi Song¹ (1. Nagoya University)

In the lubrication of nm-sliding gaps, boundary lubrication, in which the sliding surfaces are separated by an additive adsorption film, becomes useful. However, the adsorption mechanism is not well understood due to difficulty of measurement. In this talk, I present a new method for measuring the adsorption properties and the friction properties of polymer additives using our developed vertical-objective-type ellipsometric microscopy (VEM). In VEM, focusing the illumination light onto the off-axis point on the back focal plane of the objective lens can provide oblique illumination with the objective lens normal to the sample surface. This enables lateral resolution of the order of 0.1 µm and thickness resolution of the order of 0.1 nm. The thickness change of adsorbing films and friction properties of polyalkylmethacrylate (PAMA) polymer additives were measured by VEM, and the relationship between the adsorption and friction properties is discussed.