[Back]


Talks and Poster Presentations (with Proceedings-Entry):

I. Gebeshuber, H. Stachelberger, M. Drack:
"Surfaces in Relative Motion: Bionanotribological Investigations";
Talk: 1st Int. Industrial Conf. Bionik2004, Hannover/D; 04-22-2004; in: "1st Int. Industrial Conf. Bionik2004 ", (2004), ISBN: 3-18-324915-4; 229 - 236.



English abstract:
Tribology is the science of friction, adhesion, lubrication and wear.
Continuous miniaturisation of technological devices like hard disc
drives and biosensors increase the necessity for the fundamental
understanding of tribological phenomena at the micro- and nanoscale.
Biological systems show optimised performance also at this scale. After
all, Nature is an engineering office which has been in business for
millions of years. Examples for biological friction systems at different
length scales are bacterial flagellae, joints and articular cartilage
and muscle connective tissues.
Our model system for bionanotribological investigations are diatoms, for
they are small, highly reproductive, and since many of them are
transparent, they are accessible with different kinds of optical
microscopy methods. Furthermore, certain diatoms have proved to be
rewarding samples for mechanical and topological in vivo investigations
on the nanoscale.
There are several diatom species which actively move (e.g. Bacillaria
paxillifer forms colonies in which the single cells move along each
other) or which can as cell colonies be elongated a major fraction
of their original length (e.g. Ellerbeckia arenaria colonies can
reversibly be elongated by one third of their original length).
Therefore, we assume that some sort of lubrication is present in these
species. Pending endeavours in diatom bionanotribology comprise
techniques like atomic force microscopy, histochemical analysis,
infrared spectrometry, molecular spectroscopy and confocal infrared
microscopy.


Created from the Publication Database of the Vienna University of Technology.