How confined lubricants diffuse during shear

Phys Rev Lett. 2004 Dec 3;93(23):236105. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.236105. Epub 2004 Dec 3.

Abstract

The translational diffusion of a fluorescent dye embedded at a dilute concentration in a confined fluid was compared at rest and during shear. The fluid, octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (OMCTS), was confined between step-free muscovite mica to thickness 3-4 layers. Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy showed that the time scales of intensity-intensity autocorrelation functions were essentially the same during shear and at rest, except they were faster during shear by a factor of 2 to 5. This dynamical probe of how liquids order in molecularly thin films fails to support the hypothesis that shear produced a melting transition.