Exciton-mediated optical control of liquid-solid friction
Abstract
Interfacial friction in nanofluidic systems can arise from fluctuation-induced coupling between liquid charge fluctuations and the internal excitations of the confining solid. Here, we develop a microscopic theory of exciton-mediated solid-liquid friction based on the coupling between optically generated excitons and charge fluctuations in water. We distinguish between static excitons, localized by disorder or functionalization, and dynamic excitons, which interact with water through polarization fluctuations. In both cases, we derive analytical formulas for the excitonic friction, which is experimentally tunable and can significantly reduce the slip length and thereby the hydraulic permeability of nanochannels. Applying our framework to carbon nanotubes, we quantitatively reproduce the recent measurements of Kistwal et al., showing a reduction of nanotube diffusion under optical excitation, without fitting parameters. More broadly, our results establish excitons as a mechanism to optically control nanofluidic transport and suggest that excitonic photoluminescence could provide an optical probe of flow velocity inside nanochannels.
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BibTeX
@misc{pryadilin2026excitonmediated,
title = {{Exciton-mediated optical control of liquid-solid friction}},
author = {Timur Pryadilin and Alexey Kavokin and Baptiste Coquinot},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.07539},
eprint = {2605.07539},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.07539},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Exciton-mediated optical control of liquid-solid friction
AU - Timur Pryadilin
AU - Alexey Kavokin
AU - Baptiste Coquinot
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/14
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.07539
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.07539
AB - Interfacial friction in nanofluidic systems can arise from fluctuation-induced coupling between liquid charge fluctuations and the internal excitations of the confining solid. Here, we develop a microscopic theory of exciton-mediated solid-liquid friction based on the coupling between optically generated excitons and charge fluctuations in water. We distinguish between static excitons, localized by disorder or functionalization, and dynamic excitons, which interact with water through polarization fluctuations. In both cases, we derive analytical formulas for the excitonic friction, which is experimentally tunable and can significantly reduce the slip length and thereby the hydraulic permeability of nanochannels. Applying our framework to carbon nanotubes, we quantitatively reproduce the recent measurements of Kistwal et al., showing a reduction of nanotube diffusion under optical excitation, without fitting parameters. More broadly, our results establish excitons as a mechanism to optically control nanofluidic transport and suggest that excitonic photoluminescence could provide an optical probe of flow velocity inside nanochannels.
ER -