2011-06-15
10:15 at HCI J 574

Fluid transport at the nanoscales

Lydéric Bocquet

Université Lyon 1, France

« There is plenty of room at the bottom ». This visionary foresight of R. Feynman, introduced during a lecture at Caltech in 1959, was at the root of numerous scientific and technological developments, taking benefit of the "strange phenomena" occuring at the smallest scales. There remains however a lot to explore, in particular in the context of fluids at the nanoscales and their specific transport properties. The great efficiency of biological nanopores, such as aquaporins, in terms of permeability or selectivity is definitely a great motivation to foster research in this direction. How to reach such efficiency in artificial nano-systems, and build new devices taking benefit of the strange transport behavior of fluids at nanoscales is still an open question. In this talk, I will discuss some theoretical and experimental results obtained in our group on the fluid transport at small scales. I will in particular focus on the strange transport behavior of water in carbon nanotubes.

Reference: « Nanofluidics, from bulk to interfaces», L. Bocquet , E. Charlaix, Chemical Society Reviews 39, 1073 (2010) « Molecular origin of fast water transport in carbon nanotube membranes», K. Falk, F. Sedlmeier, L. Joly, R. R. Netz and L. Bocquet NanoLetters 10 4067 (2010)