Friction, lubrication, adhesion, and wear are prevalent physical phenomena in everyday life and in many key technologies. This book explains how these tribological phenomena originate from atomistic and microscale physical phenomena and shows how this understanding can be used to solve macroscale tribology problems. The book is intended to serve both as a textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in tribology and as an introduction to the field for those scientists and engineers working with technologies where a good grasp of tribology is essential.

Author Biography

Dr C. Mathew Mate Hitachi San Jose Research Center, California Mathew Mate received his Bachelor's in Engineering Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1981 and his Ph.D. in Physics from the same university in 1986. He joined the IBM Almaden Research Center as a postdoc in 1986 and became a permanent member of the research staff in 1988. In 2003, Mathew became part of the Research Center of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies when IBM sold its disk drive business to Hitachi. While working at IBM and Hitachi, he has become one of the pioneers of elucidating how friction and lubrication occur at the atomic and molecular level and applying this knowledge to practical technology problems such as disk drive reliability. In 2001, he was awarded the MRS Medal from the Materials Research Society in recognition of his pioneering studies of friction at the atomic and molecular level.