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When Brownian diffusion is not Gaussian

Nature Materials volume 11, pages 481–485 (2012)Cite this article

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It is commonly presumed that the random displacements that particles undergo as a result of the thermal jiggling of the environment follow a normal, or Gaussian, distribution. However, non-Gaussian diffusion in soft materials is more prevalent than expected.

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Figure 1: Peculiarities of Brownian diffusion in soft materials where the environment fluctuates slowly on broad timescales.
Figure 2: Non-Gaussian yet Fickian diffusion can be described with four types of probability distributions, plotted here semilogarithmically against displacement.
Figure 3: Liposome diffusion in a nematic solution of F-actin filaments.
Figure 4: Non-Gaussian yet Fickian diffusion is reflected in the spectrum of diffusivities underlying liposome diffusion in a nematic solution of actin filaments.

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to Mykyta V. Chubynsky, Gary W. Slater, Sergey Panyukov, Michael Rubinstein and Raymond E. Goldstein for useful discussions. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Division of Materials Science, under Award DEFG02-02ER46019.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, 61801, Illinois, USA

    Bo Wang, Sung Chul Bae & Steve Granick

  2. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, 61801, Illinois, USA

    James Kuo

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  1. Bo Wang
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Correspondence to Bo Wang or Steve Granick.

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Wang, B., Kuo, J., Bae, S. et al. When Brownian diffusion is not Gaussian. Nature Mater 11, 481–485 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3308

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