Download file (2.26 MB)
Download as zip (1.94 MB)

Collection

Citation

Description:

Transport of single ionic charges at solid/liquid interfaces is vital to energy conversion, electrochemistry and biological activities. It is mostly studied in ensemble indirect ways, which temporally and spatially average individual molecular dynamics. The dynamical interaction between single molecules and the interface is missing. In this study, we use an single-molecule optonanofluidic plateform relying on fluorescent hBN defects to directly visualize the interfacial transport of single protons and ultimately reveal the vital role played by surface defects. We firstly statistically report different types of adsorption sites, created by plasma bombardment, that are responsible for the proton adsorption. We further reveal that the proton dynamics features exponentially-decaying arms, strongly departing from the classically uncorrelated ergodic Gaussian for Brownian transport. By using plasma treatments to control the trapping site density, we evidence the significant modulation of single ion dynamics. Brownian dynamics simulations evidence that the exponential process originates from the molecular adsorption on defect sites, and they give a semi-empirical scaling be- tween the effective diffusion coefficient and adsorption events. Our study highlights the key yet overlooked role of defects in the interfacial charge transport, with potential applications in the design of super-capacitor, batteries and blue energy conversion.

Rights:

• Creative Commons BY-NC-ND Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
  

Keyword: ionic friction
, hBN/water interface, surface defects


Date published: 2025-09-01

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Journal:

• Communications Materials (ISSN: 26624443) vol. 6 issue. 1 200

Funding:

Manuscript type: Publisher's version (Version of record)

MDR DOI:

First published URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-025-00910-3

Related item:

Other identifier(s):

Contact agent:

Updated at: 2026-02-17 08:30:08 +0900

Published on MDR: 2026-02-16 18:00:48 +0900