Strong Electronic Winds Blowing under Liquid Flows on Carbon Surfaces

Solid-liquid interfaces display a wealth of emerging phenomena at nanometer scales, which are the root their technological applications. While interfacial structure and chemistry have been intensively explored, potential coupling between liquid flows solid’s electronic degrees freedom has broadly overlooked up till now. Despite several reports currents induced by liquids flowing in various carbon nanostructures, mechanisms stake remain controversial. Here, we unveil molecular liquid-electron investigating flow-induced current generation nanoscale. We use tuning fork atomic force microscope to deposit displace micrometric droplet on multilayer graphene sample, observe an displacement. The measured is orders magnitude larger than previously reported for water carbon, further boosted presence surface wrinkles surface. Our results point peculiar momentum transfer mechanism fluid molecules charge carriers, mediated mainly phonon excitations. These findings open new avenues active control nanoscale through solid walls’ freedom.Received 28 June 2022Revised 27 October 2022Accepted 12 January 2023DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.13.011020Published American Physical Society under terms Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution this work must maintain attribution author(s) published article’s title, journal citation, DOI.Published SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasNanofluidicsPhysical SystemsGrapheneCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics