McGill University - Nanomechanics Group

At the Physics Department of McGill University there is a  Senior Group Leader of the Nanotribology Group at the INM - Leibniz Institute for New Materials in Saarbrucken, Germany, Roland Bennewitz. He continues to closely cooperate with the Physics Department and co-supervises graduate students in Germany and at McGill.

The experimental exploration projects in their group address the mechanical behavior of very small systems. By means of high-resolution force microscopy, they study forces and dissipation on the atomic-scale. Friction forces of the order of 1 Nanonewton allow looking into the atomic origins of friction and wear.