Boundary-lubricated friction in presence of a nano-well

The advantage of surface macro- and microscopic patterning has been recently proved for improving tribological performances of mechanical sliding contacts. The effects of scaling down the texturing dimensions to the nanoscale have not yet been investigated to a comparable extent. By means of classical Molecular Dynamics simulations, we show that the frictional behavior of a thin film in boundary-lubricated regime is significantly affected by the presence of nanoscale superficial patterning of the moving confining walls, leading to a significant suppression of the high dissipative stick-slip dynamics and a consequent friction reduction. We believe these findings to be relevant for nanotechnology applications.