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Updated: Jul 3, 2026

Fluorescence Recovery after Merging a Droplet to Measure the Two-dimensional Diffusion of a Phospholipid Monolayer
Published on: October 15, 2015
Self-diffusion in molecular liquids: medium-chain n-alkanes and coenzyme Q10 studied by quasielastic neutron
Christoph Smuda1, Sebastian Busch, Gerd Gemmecker
1Forschungsneutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II), Technische Universitat Munchen, Lichtenbergstrasse 1, D-85747 Garching b. Munchen, Germany.
Abstract:
A systematic time-of-flight quasielastic neutron scattering (TOF-QENS) study on diffusion of n-alkanes in a melt is presented for the first time. As another example of a medium-chain molecule, coenzyme Q(10) is investigated in the same way. The data were evaluated both in the frequency and in the time domain. TOF-QENS data can be satisfactorily described by different models, and it turned out that the determined diffusion coefficients are largely independent of the applied model. The derived diffusion coefficients are compared with values measured by pulsed-field gradient nuclear magnetic resonance (PFG-NMR). With increasing chain length, an increasing difference between the TOF-QENS diffusion coefficient and the PFG-NMR diffusion coefficient is observed. This discrepancy in the diffusion coefficients is most likely due to a change of the diffusion mechanism on a nanometer length scale for molecules of medium-chain length.
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