Nanotribology: Microscopic mechanisms of friction

Friction is one of the oldest problems in physics with a huge practical significance. However, during the last decade this problem gets strong acceleration due to the development of new experimental techniques (surface-force apparatus, quartz-crystal microbalance technique, friction-force microscopy) and essentially due to the great progress in molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of tribological systems. In the present review we describe the modern state of the problem from the point of view of surface science physicists. The main accent is devoted to recent MD results in their connection with experiments.