Stick-Slip Nanofriction in Trapped Cold Ion Chains

Abstract

Stick-slip -- the sequence of mechanical instabilities through which a slider advances on a solid substrate -- is pervasive throughout sliding friction, from nano to geological scales. Here we suggest that trapped cold ions in an optical lattice can also be of help in understanding stick-slip friction, and also the way friction changes when one of the sliders undergoes structural transitions. For that scope, we simulated the dynamical properties of a 101-ions chain, driven to slide back and forth by a slowly oscillating electric field in an incommensurate periodic "corrugation" potential of increasing magnitude U0. We found the chain sliding to switch, as U0 increases and before the Aubry transition, from a smooth-sliding regime with low dissipation to a stick-slip regime with high dissipation. In the stick-slip regime the onset of overall sliding is preceded by precursor events consisting of partial slips of few ions only, leading to partial depinning of the chain, a nutshell remnant of precursor events at the onset of motion also observed in macroscopic sliders. Seeking to identify the possible effects on friction of a structural transition, we reduced the trapping potential aspect ratio until the ion chain shape turned from linear to zigzag. Dynamic friction was found to rise at the transition, reflecting the opening of newer dissipation channels.

9 pages, 13 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Modeling friction: From nanoscale to mesoscale
• Structural phase transitions in low-dimensional ion crystals
• Static and dynamic friction in sliding colloidal monolayers
• Quantum structural phase transition in chains of interacting atoms

Cited by in corpus (16)

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• Velocity tuning of friction with two trapped atoms
• Probing Nanofriction and Aubry-type signatures in a finite self-organized system
• Dynamical evolution in a one-dimensional incommensurate lattice with $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$ symmetry
• Nano-friction in cavity quantum electrodynamics
• Current trends in the physics of nanoscale friction
• Finite temperature spectrum at the symmetry-breaking linear-zigzag transition
• Atomic Quantum Technologies for Quantum Matter and Fundamental Physics Applications
• Quantum Effects in the Aubry Transition
• Optomechanical many-body cooling using frustration
• Kinks and Nanofriction: Structural Phases in Few-Atom Chains
• Multislip Friction with a Single Ion
• Finite-temperature phase diagram and critical point of the Aubry pinned-sliding transition in a 2D monolayer
• Nanofriction and motion of topological defects in self-organized ion Coulomb crystals
• Static and dynamic phases of a Tonks-Girardeau gas in an optical lattice
• Pinned-to-sliding transition and structural crossovers for helically confined charges