Inertia Gap Between MD Simulations and AFM Experiments in Study of Atomic Friction

Both atomic force microscopy (AFM) experiments and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation are carried out to investigate atomic stick-slip friction by sliding a Pt tip on an Au substrate. Efforts are taken to match the conditions for AFM experiment and MD simulation as closely as possible. The results show that AFM and MD provide consistent energetic parameters, which suggests that MD simulations can be reliably used to interpret energetic aspects of the interfaces. However, orders of magnitude differences in attempt frequencies are found, which indicates another challenge between the MD simulations and AFM experiments, i.e., the inertia gap.