Resolving Multi-Asperity Contacts at the Nanoscale through Super-Resolution Fluorescence Imaging

Contact mechanics, spanning nanometer to tectonic scales, faces long-standing challenges arising from multiscale random roughness, which hinders experimental validation of theories. Understanding multi-asperity rough contacts is vital for addressing catastrophic consequences of these contacts failing such as earthquakes and for diverse technological applications. To visualize such contacts, we introduce a super-resolution microscopy method utilizing spontaneous millisecond ON/OFF fluorescence blinking of contact-sensitive molecular rotor molecules immobilized on a glass coverslip. This technique achieves ∼55 nm lateral imaging resolution for rough poly(methyl methacrylate) and glass spheres on glass contacts. For soft polymer spheres due to large plastic deformation, the resolution improvement does not significantly affect the area of real contact. However, for hard glass spheres, the real contact area is found to be 2.4 times smaller than that found by diffraction-limited imaging. This study highlights, through direct visualization, the impact of material stiffness on the nanoscale structure within the area of real contact.