Superlubrication by phonon confinement

The superlubrication described here, involving confined phonons, is easily achievable and very simple because it uses only submicron islands, smaller than the mean free path of the phonons, to confine phonons. We can achieve superlubrication with a friction force of piconewton order at the submicron island. We can call this phononic lubrication or self-lubrication because phonons induced by tip shearing are confined within the submicron islands and decrease the friction during the subsequent sliding. Phonon confinement should make it possible to directly develop applications for lubricants and ultimately to open a novel avenue of tribology.