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Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Trapping of Micro Particles in Nanoplasmonic Optical Lattice
Published on: September 5, 2017
Absolute negative mobility induced by thermal equilibrium fluctuations
L Machura1, M Kostur, P Talkner
1Institute of Physics, University of Silesia, 40-007 Katowice, Poland.
Abstract:
A novel transport phenomenon is identified that is induced by inertial Brownian particles which move in simple one-dimensional, symmetric periodic potentials under the influence of both a time periodic and a constant, biasing driving force. Within tailored parameter regimes, thermal equilibrium fluctuations induce the phenomenon of absolute negative mobility (ANM), which means that the particle noisily moves backwards against a small constant bias. When no thermal fluctuations act, the transport vanishes identically in these tailored regimes. ANM can also occur in the absence of fluctuations on grounds which are rooted solely in the complex, inertial deterministic dynamics. The experimental verification of this new transport scheme is elucidated for the archetype symmetric physical system: a convenient setup consisting of a resistively and capacitively shunted Josephson junction device.
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