Influence of the solvent environment on the contact mechanics of tip-sample interactions in friction force microscopy of poly(ethylene terephthalate) films.

Friction force microscopy measurements have been carried out on free-standing films of poly(ethylene terephthalate) in a variety of different media. In ethanol, the adhesion force was small, and the friction-load relationship was linear. In perfluorodecalin, nonlinearity was observed in the friction-load relationship, and the data have been found to fit the Johnson-Kendall-Roberts model of contact mechanics. The behavior in hexadecane was also characterized by a single-asperity contact model, but in this case, the data were found to fit the Derjaguin-Müller-Toporov model. It is suggested that these differences are due to the different strengths of tip-sample adhesion, which arise from the differences in the dielectric constants of the media: in ethanol, which has a high dielectric constant, the friction force varies linearly with the load, whereas in media of low dielectric constant, adhesion-limited behavior is observed.