D-MATL’s Prof. Nic Spencer Becomes First Swiss Winner of Tribology’s Highest Honour

Nic Spencer was born and educated in the UK, obtaining his academic degrees at the University of Cambridge, where he began his research career as a surface chemist. Following his PhD, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, for a postdoctoral fellowship, working on fundamentals of ammonia synthesis. For the next 11 years he worked in the US chemical industry in the areas of catalysis, superconductors and analytical research. It was here, working with the new technique of lateral-force microscopy, that he first encountered tribology. In 1993 Spencer moved to ETH Zurich to become Professor of Surface Science and Technology in the Department of Materials, starting research programs in the areas of tribology, biomaterials and surface functionalization. He has served three times as Head of Department, and has taught tribology and surface science to many generations of Swiss students, as well as having given invited courses worldwide.

Nic Spencer has made a number of outstanding contributions to the field of tribology. In the area of biomimetic tribology, he has pioneered the use of polymer brushes for microscopic and macroscopic lubrication in both aqueous and oil-based environments, significantly advancing our understanding of such systems and our ability to apply them in applications ranging from catheters to concrete slurries. By harnessing the power of imaging surface-analytical approaches, Spencer created the combinatorial approach to the study of lubricant-additive behavior, which enables “libraries” of tribological-parameter combinations to be obtained for a particular additive, which can subsequently be cross-correlated with the presence of individual surface-chemical species. By developing new surface-analytical approaches for tribology, Spencer has provided insights into many fundamental tribological phenomena. Examples include the coupling of morphological gradients with scanning-probe microscopy for investigating the influence of roughness on friction and adhesion, the development of in situ infrared spectroscopic methods for analyzing additive reactions with surfaces during tribological stress, and the use of friction-force microscopy to map chemical differences in surfaces.

As well as being co-founder of Tribology Letters—one of the premier journals in the field—and its Editor-in-Chief over the last quarter century, Nic Spencer is also co-founder of Swiss Tribology, and the International Nanotribology Forum, under whose auspices he has organized ten workshops on nanotribology in Asia. The author of over 400 journal articles on tribology, surface functionalization, catalysis, biomaterials, and polymers, Spencer also has five books and 15 patents to his name. Spencer is a member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences, and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) and the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (US).