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Fast diffusion of water nanodroplets on graphene

Nature Materials volume 15, pages 66–71 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Diffusion across surfaces generally involves motion on a vibrating but otherwise stationary substrate. Here, using molecular dynamics, we show that a layered material such as graphene opens up a new mechanism for surface diffusion whereby adsorbates are carried by propagating ripples in a motion similar to surfing. For water nanodroplets, we demonstrate that the mechanism leads to exceedingly fast diffusion that is 2–3 orders of magnitude faster than the self-diffusion of water molecules in liquid water. We also reveal the underlying principles that regulate this new mechanism for diffusion and show how it also applies to adsorbates other than water, thus opening up the prospect of achieving fast and controllable motion of adsorbates across material surfaces more generally.

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Figure 1: Water droplet diffusion on graphene.
Figure 2: Diffusion coefficients D for different sized water nanodroplets and comparison between water nanodroplets and other adsorbates.
Figure 3: Connection between diffusion and the amplitude of the ripples of graphene and the adsorbate/substrate interaction strength.

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Acknowledgements

M.M. was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) and Bio Nano Consulting. A.M. was also supported by the ERC and the Royal Society through a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. We are grateful for computer time to UCL Research Computing, the London Centre for Nanotechnology, and the UK’s national high-performance computing service HECToR (from which access was obtained through the UK’s Material Chemistry Consortium, EP/F067496).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. London Centre for Nanotechnology, 17–19 Gordon Street London WC1H 0AH, UK,

    Ming Ma, Gabriele Tocci, Angelos Michaelides & Gabriel Aeppli

  2. Department of Chemistry, University College London, London WC1H 0AJ, UK

    Ming Ma & Angelos Michaelides

  3. Laboratory for fundamental BioPhotonics (LBP), Institute of Bio-engineering (IBI), School of Engineering (STI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland

    Gabriele Tocci

  4. Laboratory of computational Science and Modeling (COSMO), Institute of Materials (IMX), School of Engineering (STI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland

    Gabriele Tocci

  5. ETH, Zürich CH-8093, Switzerland

    Gabriel Aeppli

  6. EPF, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland

    Gabriel Aeppli

  7. Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen CH-5232, Switzerland

    Gabriel Aeppli

  8. Bio Nano Consulting, The Gridiron Building, One Pancras Square London N1C 4AG, UK,

    Gabriel Aeppli

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  1. Ming Ma
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Contributions

A.M., G.A. and M.M. proposed and designed the project. M.M. performed the force-field MD simulations and data analysis. A.M. participated in data analysis. G.T. performed AIMD simulations. A.M. and M.M. wrote the manuscript. All authors participated in manuscript preparation.

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Correspondence to Angelos Michaelides.

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Ma, M., Tocci, G., Michaelides, A. et al. Fast diffusion of water nanodroplets on graphene. Nature Mater 15, 66–71 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4449

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