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Frictionless gas flow observed in perfectly flat-walled nanochannels

Gas transport in nanoscale channels that have perfectly flat walls has been found to be frictionless, challenging the classical theory of gas flow. The findings might enable new devices for gas separation and flow control.
  1. Chuanhua Duan

    1. Chuanhua Duan is in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.

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In classical physics, frictionless gas flow through channels is a phenomenon that can occur only under ideal conditions. A key requirement is that the gas molecules undergo specular reflection from the channel walls — they rebound so that their angle of incidence is the same as the angle of reflection. In reality, gas molecules are thought to rebound from walls in all directions, a behaviour known as diffuse reflection. But can diffuse reflection be switched to specular reflection to achieve frictionless gas transport, and, if so, what are the fundamental requirements for this? In a paper in Nature, Keerthi et al.1 answer these questions by investigating gas transport through two-dimensional, nanometre-scale channels that have atomically flat walls.

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Nature 558, 379-380 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05403-7

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