Diffusion of nanoparticles in dense fluids

The diffusion process of a single spherical nanoparticle immersed in a fluid solvent is studied by molecular dynamics simulations. When the nanoparticle mass stays constant, it is shown that, at short times, the decay of the nanoparticle velocity autocorrelation function is strongly modified when the particle diameter increases. It is also shown that, at large times, the characteristic algebraic decay induced by the hydrodynamic correlations between the solvated particle and the solvent presents a scaling behavior depending on the particle diameter. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.