New IBI-4 article in J. Chem. Phys.: When bigger is faster

Generally, it is assumed that big particles diffuse slower than small particles. In a recent feature

article

of JCP we show that this assumption does not always hold.
Our video microscopy

experiments

on rod-like viruses show that large rods can diffuse faster than small rods, when they are embedded in a smectic phase consisting of layers of short host rods.
The reason is that the long rods do not feel the ordering potential of the layers, as they create their own

space

in adjacent layers.