| We discuss two approaches to model a temperature dependence of friction at the nanoscale. First of them is based on a generalized Prandtl-Tomlinson model which includes the contribution of thermal fluctuations, while the second one describes a frictional response in terms of rupture and formation of the microscopic bonds (junctions) between an AFM tip and underlying surface. We demonstrate that these models predict a rich temperature dependence of friction, including a peak and/or plateau in friction force as a function of T, and a sharp increase or decrease of friction with T. A comparison of theoretical results with recent experimental data on the temperature dependence of friction allowed to extract important microscopic characteristics of nanoscale contacts. |
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