Brownian motion of tethered nanowires

Sadao Ota, Tongcang Li, Yimin Li, Ziliang Ye, Anna Labno, Xiaobo Yin, Mohammad-Reza Alam, and Xiang Zhang
Phys. Rev. E 89, 053010 – Published 13 May 2014
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Abstract

Brownian motion of slender particles near a boundary is ubiquitous in biological systems and in nanomaterial assembly, but the complex hydrodynamic interaction in those systems is still poorly understood. Here, we report experimental and computational studies of the Brownian motion of silicon nanowires tethered on a substrate. An optical interference method enabled direct observation of microscopic rotations of the slender bodies in three dimensions with high angular and temporal resolutions. This quantitative observation revealed anisotropic and angle-dependent hydrodynamic wall effects: rotational diffusivity in inclined and azimuth directions follows different power laws as a function of the length, ∼L2.5 and ∼L3, respectively, and is more hindered for smaller inclined angles. In parallel, we developed an implicit simulation technique that takes the complex wire-wall hydrodynamic interactions into account efficiently, the result of which agreed well with the experimentally observed angle-dependent diffusion. The demonstrated techniques provide a platform for studying the microrheology of soft condensed matters, such as colloidal and biological systems near interfaces, and exploring the optimal self-assembly conditions of nanostructures.

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  • Received 1 August 2013
  • Revised 28 January 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.89.053010

©2014 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Sadao Ota1,2, Tongcang Li1,3, Yimin Li1, Ziliang Ye1, Anna Labno1, Xiaobo Yin1,3, Mohammad-Reza Alam2, and Xiang Zhang1,2,3,*

  • 1NSF Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC), 3112 Etcheverry Hall, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  • 2Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  • 3Material Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

  • *Corresponding author: xiang@berkeley.edu; Present address: 3112 Etcheverry Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

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Vol. 89, Iss. 5 — May 2014

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