A newly designed optical centrifuge allows scientists to control molecular rotation inside superfluid helium nano-droplets.

(Nanowerk News) For 15 years, scientists have been baffled by the mysterious way water flows through the tiny passages of carbon nanotubes — pipes with walls that can be just one atom thick. The ...

Scientists have now uncovered new velocity and temperature-dependent properties of rubber friction on asphalt -- bolstering the idea that an important component of friction originates when chains of ...

But scientists have struggled for decades to accurately calculate the value of friction, which is part of the data used when running coarse-grained simulations, Guenza said. As molecules move through ...

Chemists and physicists at the University of Amsterdam shed light on a crucial aspect of friction: how things begin to slide. Using fluorescence microscopy and dedicated fluorescent molecules, they ...

The Saarland researchers reveal that the slipperiness of ice is driven by electrostatic forces, not melting. Water molecules in ice are arranged in a rigid crystal lattice. Each molecule has a ...

Friction is a force that affects any application where moving parts come into contact; the more surface contact there is, the stronger the force. At the nanoscale -- mere billionths of a meter -- ...

The study of tribology, the science of friction, wear and lubrication, has increasingly benefitted from advances in molecular dynamics simulations, providing detailed atomistic insights into the ...

Finding the right lubricant for the right purpose is a task that is often extremely important in industry. Not only to reduce friction, overheating and wear, but also to save energy. At TU Wien, the ...