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Open AccessEnhanced osmotic transport in individual double-walled carbon nanotube
The transport of fluid and ions across nanotubes or nanochannels has attracted great attention due to the ultrahigh energy power density and slip length, with applications in water purification, desalination, ...
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Article
Enhanced nanofluidic transport in activated carbon nanoconduits
Carbon has emerged as a unique material in nanofluidics, with reports of fast water transport, molecular ion separation and efficient osmotic energy conversion. Many of these phenomena still await proper ratio...
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Article
Open AccessUnderstanding the rheology of nanocontacts
Mechanical stiffness, as opposed to softness, is a fundamental property of solids. Its persistence or rheological evolution in vibrating solid-solid nanocontacts is important in physics, materials science and ...
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Article
Mechanically activated ionic transport across single-digit carbon nanotubes
Fluid and ionic transport at the nanoscale has recently demonstrated a wealth of exotic behaviours1–14. However, artificial nanofluidic devices15–18 are still far from demonstrating the advanced functionalities e...
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Article
Ionic Coulomb blockade as a fractional Wien effect
Recent advances in nanofluidics have allowed the exploration of ion transport down to molecular-scale confinement, yet artificial porins are still far from reaching the advanced functionalities of biological i...
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Atomic rheology of gold nanojunctions
Despite extensive investigations of dissipation and deformation processes in micro- and nano-sized metallic samples1–7, the mechanisms at play during the deformation of systems with ultimate (molecular) size rema...
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New avenues for the large-scale harvesting of blue energy
Salinity gradients have been identified as promising clean, renewable and non-intermittent sources of energy — so-called blue energy. However, the low efficiency of current harvesting technologies is a major l...
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Open AccessElectron beam detection of a Nanotube Scanning Force Microscope
Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) allows to probe matter at atomic scale by measuring the perturbation of a nanomechanical oscillator induced by near-field interaction forces. The quest to improve sensitivity and ...
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Article
Nanoscale capillary freezing of ionic liquids confined between metallic interfaces and the role of electronic screening
Room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) are new materials with fundamental importance for energy storage and active lubrication. They are unusual liquids, which challenge the classical frameworks of electrolyte...
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Open AccessPairwise frictional profile between particles determines discontinuous shear thickening transition in non-colloidal suspensions
The process by which sheared suspensions go through a dramatic change in viscosity is known as discontinuous shear thickening. Although well-characterized on the macroscale, the microscopic mechanisms at play ...
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Flows in one-dimensional and two-dimensional carbon nanochannels: Fast and curious
Carbon materials exist in a large number of allotropic forms and exhibit a wide range of physical and chemical properties. From the perspective of fluidics, particularly within the confines of the nanoscale af...
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Massive radius-dependent flow slippage in carbon nanotubes
The pressure-driven flow rate through individual carbon nanotubes is precisely determined from the hydrodynamics of emerging water jets, revealing unexpectedly large and radius-dependent surface slippage.
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Giant osmotic energy conversion measured in a single transmembrane boron nitride nanotube
A very large, osmotically induced electric current is generated by a salinity gradient between the ends of a single boron nitride transmembrane nanotube, owing to the anomalously high surface charge carried by...
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Open AccessA Scheme for Solving the Plane–Plane Challenge in Force Measurements at the Nanoscale
Non-contact interaction between two parallel flat surfaces is a central paradigm in sciences. This situation is the starting point for a wealth of different models: the capacitor description in electrostatics,...
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Radiative heat transfer at the nanoscale
Heat can be exchanged between two surfaces through emission and absorption of thermal radiation. It has been predicted theoretically that for distances smaller than the peak wavelength of the blackbody spectru...
