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Written by one of the most distinguished scientists and a pioneer in this field, this monograph represents a stand-alone, concise guide to friction at the atomic level. It brings together hitherto widely-scattered information in one single source, and is the first to explain the nature of friction in terms of atomistic mechanisms. In addition to his detailed description on modeling and simulation, the author stresses experimental approaches like AFM (Atomic Force Microscope) techniques for verification of theory. In this respect the book will benefit the whole nanotribology community, from graduate students who want to get the basics right up to researchers specializing in mechanical engineering, materials science, physics and chemistry.

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1. Classical theory of friction
1.1 Law of friction
1.2 Surface roughness model
1.3 Cohesive energy and adhesion model
1.4 Mechanical adiabaticity of atomic motion and energy dissipation in friction
2. Atomistic model of friction
2.1 Single atom model: Tomlinson model
2.2 Many atom model: Frenkel-Kontorova model
2.3 Realistic model and interatomic potentials
3. Topological description of friction -static and dynamic friction-
3.1 Theoretical preliminaries
3.2 The case of unrelaxed upper body
3.3 A more realistic case: A relaxed upper body
3.4 Friction transition and Tomlinson model
4. Atomistic origin of friction
4.1 Friction model
4.2 Static friction
4.3 Dynamic friction and energy dissipation
5. Superlubricity: a state of vanishing friction
5.1 Adiabatic motion of atoms and atomic arrangements at surfaces
5.2 Importance of high dimensionality
5.3 Energy recurrence phenomena
6. Friction diagram
6.1 Friction diagram of Frenkel-Kontorova model
6.4 Atomic-scale sliding friction of realistic model7. Experimental approach for atomic-scale friction
7.1 Atomic force microscopy techniques for measuring friction
7.2 Verification of atomistic theory of friction by atomic force microscopy
Appendix A. Adiabatic theorem
Appendix B. Calculation of static friction force
Appendix C. Molecular dynamics
Appendix D. Chaos and atomistic friction
Appendix E. Lattice vibration

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Motohisa Hirano was born in 1957 in Gamagori City, Aichi, Japan. Following his graduation from the Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, in 1982, he joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation in the same year. After working for Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (1985-2003) and serving as a professor at the Faculty of Engineering, Gifu University (2003-2014), he has been serving as a professor at the faculty of Science and Engineering, Hosei University, since 2014. He obtained doctoral degrees in engineering in 1989, from Nagoya University, and in science in 1998, from the University of Tokyo. Professor Hirano has authored over 200 scientific publications on engineering and science on the atomistics of friction and nanotribology. Laboratory HP: http://hirano-lab.ws.hosei.ac.jp/index\_j.html

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