title: Resonant photon tunneling enhancement of the van der Waals friction.
abstract: We study the van der Waals friction between two flat metal surfaces in relative motion. For good conductors, we find that normal relative motion gives a much larger friction than for parallel relative motion. The friction may increase by many orders of magnitude when the surfaces are covered by adsorbates, or can support low-frequency surface plasmons. In this case, the friction is determined by resonant photon tunneling between adsorbate vibrational modes, or surface plasmon modes.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Festkorperforschung, Forschungszentrum, Jülich D-52425, Germany.
authors.forename: A I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Volokitin
authors.forename: B N J
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Persson