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Resonant photon tunneling enhancement of the van der Waals friction

A. I. Volokitin·B. N. J. Persson
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Abstract

We study the van der Waals friction between two flat metal surfaces in relative motion. For good conductors we find that normal relative motion gives a much larger friction than for parallel relative motion. The friction may increase by many order of magnitude when the surfaces are covered by adsorbates, or can support low-frequency surface plasmons. In this case the friction is determined by resonant photon tunneling between adsorbate vibrational modes, or surface plasmon modes.

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A. I. Volokitin, B. N. J. Persson. 2006-05-22. Resonant photon tunneling enhancement of the van der Waals friction. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.91.106101

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