Mechanically activated ionic transport across single-digit carbon nanotubes
arXiv:2011.06364 · doi:10.1038/s41563-020-0726-4
Abstract
Fluid and ionic transport at nanoscale recently highlighted a wealth of exotic behaviours. However, the artificial nanofluidic devices are still far from the advanced functionalities existing in biological systems, such as electrically and mechanically activated transport. Here we focus on the ionic transport through 2 nm-radius individual multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNT), under the combination of mechanical and electrical forcings. Our findings evidence mechanically activated ionic transport under the form of an ionic conductance which depends quadratically on the applied pressure. Our theoretical study relates this behaviour with the complex interplay between electrical and mechanical drivings, and shows that the superlubricity of CNT is a prerequisite to attain mechanically activated transport. The pressure sensitivity shares similarities with the response of biological mechanosensitive ion channels observed here for the first time in an artificial system. This paves the way to build new active nanofluidic functionalities inspired by the complex biological machinery.
References in corpus (7)
- Nanofluidics, from bulk to interfaces
- Anomalously low dielectric constant of confined water
- Molecular transport through capillaries made with atomic-scale precision
- Size effect in ion transport through angstrom-scale slits
- Nanofluidics coming of age
- Molecular streaming and its voltage control in ångström scale channels
- Scaling behavior for ionic transport and its fluctuations in individual carbon nanotubes
Cited by in corpus (12)
- Fluids at the Nanoscale: from continuum to sub-continuum transport
- Long-term memory and synapse-like dynamics in two-dimensional nanofluidic channels
- Modeling of emergent memory and voltage spiking in ionic transport through angström-scale slits
- Nanofluidics at the crossroads
- Angstrofluidics: walking to the limit
- Pressure Induced Enlargement and Ionic Current Rectification in Symmetric Nanopores
- Pressure-sensitive ion conduction in a conical channel: optimal pressure and geometry
- Electrification of water interface
- Electrical Conductance of Nanofluidic Systems subjected to Asymmetric Concentrations
- A large deviation theory perspective on nanoscale transport phenomena
- Electrical conductance of charged nanopores
- Analytic theory of nonlinearly coupled electrokinetics in nanochannels