Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Diffusion01:12

Diffusion

192.6K
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...
192.6K
Protein Diffusion in the Membrane01:24

Protein Diffusion in the Membrane

4.4K
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...
4.4K
Passive Diffusion: Overview and Kinetics01:17

Passive Diffusion: Overview and Kinetics

498
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...
498
Carrier Transport01:21

Carrier Transport

449
The generation of electrical current in semiconductors is fundamentally driven by two mechanisms: drift and diffusion. These processes are essential for the functionality and performance of semiconductor-based devices.
Drift Current:
The drift of charge carriers is started by an external electric field (E). Charged particles, such as electrons and holes, experience an acceleration between collisions with lattice atoms. For electrons, this results in a drift velocity (vd) given by:
449
Behavior of Gas Molecules: Molecular Diffusion, Mean Free Path, and Effusion03:48

Behavior of Gas Molecules: Molecular Diffusion, Mean Free Path, and Effusion

29.0K
Although gaseous molecules travel at tremendous speeds (hundreds of meters per second), they collide with other gaseous molecules and travel in many different directions before reaching the desired target. At room temperature, a gaseous molecule will experience billions of collisions per second. The mean free path is the average distance a molecule travels between collisions. The mean free path increases with decreasing pressure; in general, the mean free path for a gaseous molecule will be...
29.0K
Electrostatic Boundary Conditions01:16

Electrostatic Boundary Conditions

480
Consider an external electric field propagating through a homogeneous medium. When the electric field crosses the surface boundary of the medium, it undergoes a discontinuity. The electric field can be resolved into normal and tangential components. The amount by which the field changes at any boundary is given by the difference between the field components above and below the surface boundary.
The surface integral of an electric field is given by Gauss's law in integral form and is related to...
480

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Effective synchronization amid noise-induced chaos.

Physical review. E·2026
Same author

Accelerated Ostwald Ripening by Chemical Activity.

Journal of the American Chemical Society·2025
Same author

Enhanced diffusion over a periodic trap by hydrodynamic coupling to an elastic mode.

Communications physics·2025
Same author

Solving Lyapunov equations for electrically driven ternary electrolytes: Application to long-range van der Waals interactions.

Physical review. E·2025
Same author

Two-dimensional Coulomb gas in a nonconservative trap.

Physical review. E·2025
Same author

Effective description of Taylor dispersion in strongly corrugated channels.

Physical review. E·2025
Same journal

Erratum: Low-dimensional model for adaptive networks of spiking neurons [Phys. Rev. E 111, 014422 (2025)].

Physical review. E·2026
Same journal

Disentangling the effects of many-body forces on depletion interactions.

Physical review. E·2026
Same journal

Charge transport and mode transition in dual-energy electron beam diodes.

Physical review. E·2026
Same journal

Optimization of multisite reactions in complex compartmentalized media.

Physical review. E·2026
Same journal

Origin of geometric cohesion in nonconvex granular materials: Interplay between interdigitation and rotational constraints enhancing frictional stability.

Physical review. E·2026
Same journal

Interaction of walkers with a standing Faraday wave.

Physical review. E·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 8, 2025

The Diffusion of Passive Tracers in Laminar Shear Flow
08:01

The Diffusion of Passive Tracers in Laminar Shear Flow

Published on: May 1, 2018

8.6K

Single-file diffusion in spatially inhomogeneous systems.

Benjamin Sorkin1, David S Dean2,3

  • 1School of Chemistry and Center for Physics and Chemistry of Living Systems, Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel.

Physical Review. E
|December 20, 2023
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

We found that tracer particle dispersion in single-file diffusion with varying potential and diffusivity mirrors normal diffusion. This holds true even with spatial variations, revealing a consistent long-time behavior characterized by an effective diffusion constant.

More Related Videos

Single-Molecule Tracking Microscopy - A Tool for Determining the Diffusive States of Cytosolic Molecules
00:10

Single-Molecule Tracking Microscopy - A Tool for Determining the Diffusive States of Cytosolic Molecules

Published on: September 5, 2019

8.2K
Synthesis of Cyclic Polymers and Characterization of Their Diffusive Motion in the Melt State at the Single Molecule Level
06:55

Synthesis of Cyclic Polymers and Characterization of Their Diffusive Motion in the Melt State at the Single Molecule Level

Published on: September 26, 2016

7.9K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 8, 2025

The Diffusion of Passive Tracers in Laminar Shear Flow
08:01

The Diffusion of Passive Tracers in Laminar Shear Flow

Published on: May 1, 2018

8.6K
Single-Molecule Tracking Microscopy - A Tool for Determining the Diffusive States of Cytosolic Molecules
00:10

Single-Molecule Tracking Microscopy - A Tool for Determining the Diffusive States of Cytosolic Molecules

Published on: September 5, 2019

8.2K
Synthesis of Cyclic Polymers and Characterization of Their Diffusive Motion in the Melt State at the Single Molecule Level
06:55

Synthesis of Cyclic Polymers and Characterization of Their Diffusive Motion in the Melt State at the Single Molecule Level

Published on: September 26, 2016

7.9K

Area of Science:

  • Statistical Mechanics
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Mathematical Physics

Background:

  • Single-file diffusion describes systems where particles move unidirectionally.
  • Spatially varying potentials and diffusivities complicate standard diffusion models.
  • Understanding tracer particle behavior is key to characterizing complex diffusion dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the impact of spatially varying potential and diffusivity on tracer dispersion in single-file diffusion.
  • To determine if single-file diffusion in heterogeneous systems exhibits normal diffusion at late times.
  • To compare the long-time dispersion behavior with homogeneous systems.

Main Methods:

  • Late-time analysis of the Fokker-Planck equation.
  • Application of the mathematical theory of homogenization.
  • Numerical simulations for both annealed and quenched initial conditions.

Main Results:

  • Noninteracting particles in single-file diffusion show normal diffusion at late times.
  • The dispersion of single-file tracers matches Brownian particle dispersion in homogeneous systems.
  • This behavior is characterized by an effective diffusion constant (D_eff).

Conclusions:

  • Spatially varying potentials and diffusivities do not alter the long-time dispersion behavior of single-file tracers.
  • The system effectively behaves as a homogeneous system with a constant effective diffusion constant.
  • Findings are robust across different initial conditions and validated by simulations.