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Related Concept Videos

Diffusion01:12

Diffusion

Diffusion is the passive movement of substances down their concentration gradients—requiring no expenditure of cellular energy. Substances, such as molecules or ions, diffuse from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration in the cytosol or across membranes. Eventually, the concentration will even out, with the substance moving randomly but causing no net change in concentration. Such a state is called dynamic equilibrium, which is essential for maintaining overall...
Protein Diffusion in the Membrane01:24

Protein Diffusion in the Membrane

Proteins show rotational as well as lateral diffusion across the membrane. The lateral diffusion of proteins was confirmed through the cell fusion experiment where mouse and human cells were fused, resulting in hybrid cells. When the human and mouse cells fused, the specific membrane proteins on human and mouse cells were marked with the red and green-fluorescent markers, respectively. Initially, the red and green fluorescence was located on the respective hemisphere of the cell. As time...
Diffusion01:21

Diffusion

Diffusion is a type of passive transport. In passive transport, a substance tends to move from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration until the concentration is equal across the space. For example, take the diffusion of substances through the air. When someone opens a perfume bottle in a room filled with people, the perfume is at its highest concentration in the bottle and is at its lowest at the edges of the room. The perfume vapor will diffuse, or spread away, from the...
Surface Tension and Surface Energy01:16

Surface Tension and Surface Energy

When a paint brush is immersed in water, the bristles wave freely inside the water. When it is taken out, the bristles stick together. The reason behind this effect is surface tension.
Consider a beaker filled with liquid. The bulk molecules in the liquid experience equal attractive forces on all sides with the surrounding molecules. However, the surface molecules experience a net attractive force downward due to the bulk molecules. The surface of the liquid behaves like a stretched membrane,...
Surface Tension01:24

Surface Tension

Surface tension is defined as the force per unit length (γ) acting along the surface of a liquid. It arises due to strong intermolecular forces of attraction. A molecule located inside the bulk of the liquid is surrounded by other molecules and experiences equal forces in all directions. However, a molecule at the surface experiences unbalanced forces because there are more neighboring molecules below than above. This creates a net inward force that pulls surface molecules toward the interior,...
Passive Diffusion: Overview and Kinetics01:17

Passive Diffusion: Overview and Kinetics

Passive diffusion is a critical process that allows small lipophilic drugs to cross the cell membrane along a concentration gradient. This mechanism's efficiency depends on four primary factors: the membrane's surface area, the drug's lipid-water partition coefficient, the concentration gradient, and the membrane's thickness.
When administered orally, drugs establish a substantial concentration gradient between the gastrointestinal (GI) lumen and the bloodstream, expediting their diffusion into...

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Updated: Jul 1, 2026

Light Enhanced Hydrofluoric Acid Passivation: A Sensitive Technique for Detecting Bulk Silicon Defects
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Nothing moves a surface: vacancy mediated surface diffusion.

R van Gastel1, E Somfai, S B van Albada

  • 1Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands.

Physical Review Letters
|April 6, 2001
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Surface atoms on copper move constantly, even at room temperature. This atomic motion is driven by rapidly diffusing vacancies, visualized using indium tracer atoms in a novel study.

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Published on: July 17, 2020

Area of Science:

  • Surface science
  • Materials science
  • Condensed matter physics

Background:

  • Understanding atomic motion on metal surfaces is crucial for catalysis and material properties.
  • Previous studies often assumed limited atomic mobility at room temperature.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the dynamic behavior of atoms on a copper (Cu)(001) surface at room temperature.
  • To elucidate the mechanism behind observed atomic surface diffusion.

Main Methods:

  • Utilizing scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to observe atomic-scale surface dynamics.
  • Employing a low density of embedded indium (In) "tracer" atoms to visualize surface atom movement.
  • Analyzing the displacement distribution of tracer atoms.

Main Results:

  • All atoms on the Cu(001) surface exhibit frequent movement, even at ambient temperatures.
  • Indium tracer atoms display surprising concerted, long-range jumps.
  • The observed diffusion is attributed to an ultralow density of rapidly diffusing surface vacancies.

Conclusions:

  • The study reveals a dynamic surface environment on Cu(001) at room temperature.
  • A novel vacancy-mediated diffusion mechanism is proposed and supported by experimental data.
  • This finding has implications for surface reactions and thin-film growth.