Mitigate Quantum Friction on Defective Multilayer Graphene

The interfacial friction is crucial for advanced nanofluidic applications. Based on previous knowledge, the atomic defects increase the friction between liquid and solid, which slows the fluid transport. However, quantum friction has been discovered very recently, which arises from non-adiabatic coupling between liquid and solid charge fluctuations, and the impact of defects on it is unknown. In this work, molecular dynamics simulations with a classical Drude oscillator model were employed to study the interplay between atomic defects and friction at the graphene-water interface. It reveals that the defects have a paradoxical dual effect: the classical friction is increased by enhancing the corrugation of the interfacial free-energy landscape; in contrast, the defects suppress the quantum friction, which occurs because the defects alter the collective electronic response of the solid, reducing the spectral overlap between charge fluctuations of the solid and librational modes of water.