A nanostructured surface increases friction exponentially at the solid-gas interface.
According to Stokes' law, a moving solid surface experiences viscous drag that is linearly related to its velocity and the viscosity of the medium. The viscous interactions result in dissipation that is known to scale as the square root of the kinematic viscosity times the density of the gas. We observed that when an oscillating surface is modified with nanostructures, the experimentally measured dissipation shows an exponential dependence on kinematic viscosity. The surface nanostructures alter solid-gas interplay greatly, amplifying the dissipation response exponentially for even minute variations in viscosity. Nanostructured resonator thus allows discrimination of otherwise narrow range of gaseous viscosity making dissipation an ideal parameter for analysis of a gaseous media. We attribute the observed exponential enhancement to the stochastic nature of interactions of many coupled nanostructures with the gas media.
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
Arindam
A
Phani
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.|Department of Mathematical Statistical Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
Vakhtang
V
Putkaradze
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
John E
JE
Hawk
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
Kovur
K
Prashanthi
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
Thomas
T
Thundat