FLAKE: Friction and Lattice Analysis of Kinetics and Energetics of rigid 2D clusters on crystalline substrates

Abstract

When a small solid island slides across a crystalline surface, the outcome (smooth flow or stick-slip, free rotation or angular locking) is controlled almost entirely by the geometric relationship between the island and the surface: their relative orientation, size and lattice symmetry. These phenomena are central to nanoscale friction, to the interpretation of colloidal monolayer experiments and to structural superlubricity. FLAKE (Friction and Lattice Analysis of Kinetics and Energetics) is a Python package for simulating the statics and Langevin dynamics of a rigid 2D cluster sliding over a periodic or quasiperiodic substrate potential. It enables fast, systematic exploration of how geometry and substrate symmetry control the energy landscape and friction, studies that are prohibitively expensive with fully atomistic simulations. FLAKE has been the primary simulation tool for three published studies on structural superlubricity and colloidal friction.