Fluid structure and boundary slippage in nanoscale liquid films

During the last ten years, there has been enormous interest in understanding transport phenomena in micro and nanofluidic systems and, in particular, in accurate prediction of fluid flows with slip boundary conditions at liquid-solid interfaces. In this chapter, we discuss recent results obtained from molecular dynamics simulations of fluids that consist of monomers or linear polymer chains confined by flat crystalline surfaces. The effects of shear rate and wall lattice orientation on the slip behaviour are studied for a number of material parameters of the interface, such as fluid and wall densities, wall-fluid interaction energy, polymer chain length, and wall lattice type. A detailed analysis of the substrate-induced fluid structure and interfacial diffusion of fluid molecules is performed to identify slip flow regimes at low and high shear rates.