The Methods to Unlock Molybdenum Disulfide

Author(s): Rodriguez, Anthony | Abstract: In today’s world, we’ve invented many new technologies that have allowed us to map out the earth’s surface but just as we can map out surfaces in a large scale, we can also map out surfaces in a very small scale such as in nanometers. Thus, giving us opportunities to study a discover various materials such as molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) crystalline flakes. MoS2 being a material that has a similar yet different structure to graphene, low friction when compared to SiO2 (a low friction material as is), and provides many potential applications that can be implemented into aerospace as a solid lubricant. But like any fellow researcher studying a material, each has their own methods/techniques that they use to obtain results. In our proposal, we will cover the research that has taken place to provide a consensus of MoS2’s potential application as a solid lubricant in aerospace to its low frictional properties in the nanometer scale. And the technologies we’ll be looking into to access for our methods/techniques for researching will be Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-Ray Photoelectric Spectroscopy (XPS), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and Tribometers at the University of California, Merced (UC Merced).