Theoretically, a stretched chemical bond exhibits a dynamic breaking behavior due to the competition between the spontaneous thermally-activated and mechanically-activated breaking mechanisms: the breaking force is constant at low force loading rates (FLRs), increases at intermediate FLRs and reaches a constant value at high FLRs. For the first time, the dynamic breaking behavior was demonstrated for a single chemical bond between two gold atoms in current-sensing atomic force microscopy experiments (Dr. Ilya Pobelov and the group of Prof. Wandlowski) and explored in molecular dynamics simulations (Prof. Gemma Solomon, University of Copenhagen).

References:

• I. V. Pobelov, K. Primdal Lauritzen, K. Yoshida, A. Jensen, G. Mészáros, K. W. Jacobsen, M. Strange, T. Wandlowski, G. C. Solomon;
  "Dynamic breaking of a single gold bond"
  Nature Communications, 2017, 8, 15931; doi:10.1038/ncomms15931.