How localized are energy dissipation processes in nanoscale interactions?

Abstract

We describe fundamental energy dissipation in dynamic nanoscale processes in terms of thelocalization of the interactions. In this respect, the areal density of the energy dissipatedper cycle and the effective area of interaction in which each process occurs are calculatedfor four elementary dissipative processes. It is the ratio between these two, which we termM, that provides information about how localized the interactions are. While our results aregeneral, we use concepts from dynamic atomic force microscopy to describe the physicalphenomenon. We show that neither the phase lag, nor the magnitude of the energydissipated alone provide information about how dissipative processes are localized. Instead,M has to be considered.