Palestrante:Prof. Dr. Esteban Broitman (Linköping University, Sweden)

Abstract:

By the end of the second industrial revolution, Charles Chapin shows in his masterpiece silent movie “Modern Times” a futuristic factory where operators clean and lubricate huge machines [1]. His vision probably reflects the popular belief that, in the future, macromachines will relief mankind from heavy work. That is also accounted in most of studies at that time, reporting macroscale wear and lubrication data. The seed idea for developing micro- and nano-machines was probably introduced in 1959 by the USA physicist Richard Feynman in his lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” [2]. He envisioned that direct manipulation of matter at atomic scale will be used in a near future to build tiny machines that could arrange the atoms and perform chemical synthesis by mechanical manipulation. Nowadays, micromachines in the size range of 100 nm to 100 μm, known also as MEMS (microelectro-mechanical systems), are massively used in accelerometers for automotive systems, inkjet printer heads, game controllers, hard disks, and rotation sensors for smartphones. In this talk, after a short introduction of Chaplin and Feynman envisions, I will first focus about the validity of physical and tribological laws at different scales [3]. Friction, wear and lubrication issues of Chaplin’s macromachines and Feynman’s micromachines will be compared. Different solutions to decrease friction and wear in sliding macro- and micromachines by the use of thin film technology will be highlighted. I will show some of my present developments on thin film solid lubrication leading to Feynman’s vision of machines at the nanometer scale, like Pb films [4], and novel fullerene-like coatings [5,6] with self-healing properties [6]. Finally, I will discuss how Brazil can save money investing in the development of new tribological materials.