14 DAY TRIAL // The experiment conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, designed to measure vibrations that occur during the slide of two materials on each other's surface, demonstrate that heavier elements planted on the surface of an object can reduce the force of friction and loss of energy through this process.
Scientist used for study three diamond crystals, over which they slid a microscopic needle. They measured the vibrations produced by the needle on the first diamond crystal, after which they coated the surface of the second, without changing its chemistry, with a single layer of hydrogen atoms, and measured the vibrations again. Then they coated the third diamond's surface with a heavier element, deuterium, a hydrogen isotope that has an extra neutron. After the third measurement, they have discovered that the level of vibrations was smaller on the deuterium coated crystal, concluding that heavier atoms vibrate slowly due to their increased size and lead to smaller amounts of energy being lost through heat.
Sliding bodies have a lot of applications in many manufacturing industries, such as the automobile industry. Even without rough edges, the balls inside a ball bearing will still wear off after a while, and become unusable due to friction that pulls atoms off the ball's surface.
The single layer of atoms at the surface of each crystal acts as a transfer medium, absorbing energy from the needle tip, less than 50nm in radius at the end. The heavier atom, the lower the frequency at which it will vibrate; meaning that light atoms will vibrate faster, creating more energy dissipation.
The energy dissipation and the frequency at which atoms vibrate is directly linked with to friction, industry always trying to reduce this force, and the reductions of heat generation and wear. The use of this technology can be successfully implemented in some areas of the industry such as clutch manufacturing, without changing some of the properties of the material, like wear of adhesion of the material.
Even in the absence of rough edges or wear between sliding bodies, friction between the atoms produces vibrations which dissipate a lot of energy.