Related papers: Angstrofluidics: walking to the limit
Many microfluidic devices use macroscopic pressure differentials to overcome viscous friction and generate flows in microchannels. In this work, we investigate how the chemical and geometric properties of the channel walls can drive a net…
We have used the scanning charged tip of an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) to produce images of the conductance variation of a quantised 1D ballistic channel. The channel was formed using electron beam defined 700 nm wide split gate surface…
In fluid transport across nanopores, there is a fundamental dissipation that arises from the connection between the pore and the macroscopic reservoirs. This entrance effect can hinder the whole transport in certain situations, for short…
Ion channels regulate many essential properties of biological cells, especially the membrane potential. Despite decades of efforts on artificial channels, it remains a great challenge to mimic the dipole potential-an indispensable…
Microfluidic chips provide unparalleled control over droplets and jets, which have advanced all natural sciences. However, microfluidic applications could be vastly expanded by increasing the per-channel throughput and directly exploiting…
The number of precise conductance measurements in nanopores is quickly growing. In order to clarify the dominant mechanisms at play and facilitate the characterization of such systems for which there is still no clear consensus, we propose…
Carbon nanotube networks are one of the candidate materials to function as malleable, transparent, conducting films, with the technologically promising application of being used as flexible electronic displays. Nanotubes disorderly…
Continuum simulations become an important tool to uncover the mysteries in nanofluidic experiments. However, fluid flow in simulation models is usually unconsidered. Here, systematical simulations are conducted to provide a quantitative…
Manipulating the electrostatic double layer and tuning the conductance in nanofluidic systems at salt concentrations of 100 mM or higher has been a persistent challenge. The primary reasons are (i) the short electrostatic proximity length,…
Deformable microchannels emulate a key characteristic of soft biological systems and flexible engineering devices: the flow-induced deformation of the conduit due to slow viscous flow within. Elucidating the two-way coupling between…
The shape of a microchannel during flow through it is instrumental to understanding the physics that govern various phenomena ranging from rheological measurements of fluids to separation of particles and cells. Two commonly used approaches…
Due to their nature, using shear thickening fluids (STFs) in engineering applications has sparked an interest in developing energy-dissipating systems, such as damping devices or shock absorbers. The Rheinforce technology allows the design…
The transport properties of disordered systems are known to depend critically on dimensionality. We study the diffusion coefficient of a quantum particle confined to a lattice on the surface of a tube, where it scales between the 1D and 2D…
We uncover anisotropic permeability in microfluidic deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) arrays. A DLD array can achieve high-resolution bimodal size-based separation of microparticles, including bioparticles, such as cells. For an…
Nanopores are both a tool to study single-molecule biophysics and nanoscale ion transport, but also a promising material for desalination or osmotic power generation. Understanding the physics underlying ion transport through nano-sized…
In the osmotic power generation field, reaching the industrial benchmark has been challenging because of the need for capillaries close to the sizes of ions and molecules. Here, we fabricated well-controlled 'along-the-capillary' membranes…
Compared to isotropic liquids, orientational order of nematic liquid crystals makes their rheological properties more involved, and thus requires fine control of the flow parameters to govern the orientational patterns. In microfluidic…
3D bicontinuous two-phase materials are increasingly gaining interest because of their unique multifunctional characteristics and advancements in techniques to fabricate them. Due to their complex topological and structural properties, it…
Two dimensional (2D) crystals have attracted strong interest as a new class of proton conducting materials that can block atoms, molecules and ions while allowing proton transport through the atomically thin basal planes. Although 2D…
A major obstacle for the understanding of long electrical discharges is the complex dynamics of streamer coronas, formed by many thin conducting filaments. Building macroscopic models for these filaments is one approach to attain a deeper…