Morse potential-based model for contacting composite rough surfaces: Application to self-assembled monolayer junctions

This work formulates a rough surface contact model that accounts for adhesion through a Morse potential and plasticity through the Kogut-Etsion finite element-based approximation. Compared to the commonly used Lennard-Jones (LJ) potential, the Morse potential provides a more accurate and generalized...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of applied physics 2016-04, Vol.119 (14)
Main Authors: Sierra-Suarez, Jonatan A., Majumdar, Shubhaditya, McGaughey, Alan J. H., Malen, Jonathan A., Higgs, C. Fred
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied physics
Contact potentials
Finite element method
Gold
Monolayers
Morse potential
Self-assembled monolayers
Self-assembly
Substrates
Thermal conductivity
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This work formulates a rough surface contact model that accounts for adhesion through a Morse potential and plasticity through the Kogut-Etsion finite element-based approximation. Compared to the commonly used Lennard-Jones (LJ) potential, the Morse potential provides a more accurate and generalized description for modeling covalent materials and surface interactions. An extension of this contact model to describe composite layered surfaces is presented and implemented to study a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) grown on a gold substrate placed in contact with a second gold substrate. Based on a comparison with prior experimental measurements of the thermal conductance of this SAM junction [Majumdar et al., Nano Lett. 15, 2985–2991 (2015)], the more general Morse potential-based contact model provides a better prediction of the percentage contact area than an equivalent LJ potential-based model.
ISSN:0021-8979
1089-7550
DOI:10.1063/1.4945759