Orientational frustration drives enhanced diffusion of anisotropic particles in a liquid labyrinth
Abstract
Transport of nanoscale objects in complex, structured environments plays a key role in a wide range of processes, from biomolecular dynamics in extracellular spaces to transport in porous materials such as filters and catalysts. While anomalous diffusion is well established, how particle anisotropy governs transport under geometric constraints remains unclear. Here we use 3D single-particle tracking to investigate the diffusion of stiff one-dimensional carbon nanotubes in a continuous soft matter network of interconnected chambers and constrictions. Transport is anomalous and antipersistent, with strong length dependent confinement and trapping, consistent with obstructed diffusion. Unexpectedly, however, escape from confinement is poorly sensitive to nanotube length as opposed to what would be expected of pore mediated transport. Despite a tenfold length increase and significantly enhanced trapping, escape time increased by only ~1.4. Single-particle orientational tracking reveals the origin of this weak scaling. Indeed, long nanotube, i.e. those with length comparable to the chamber dimensions, dynamically align with constrictions enabling efficient, geometry-assisted escape that offsets increased confinement while shorter nanotubes need to screen the volume to find their escape path. These results uncover an alignment-mediated transport mechanism that decouples confinement strength from escape kinetics, distinct from pore-mediated transport mechanisms, establishing a quantitative framework for anisotropic diffusion in complex environments.
Related
- Massive particles and ISCO with anisotropic model in black hole spacetimes
- Collective deformation of anisotropic particles with internal pulsation
- Chaotic behaviors of particles around the black hole with an anisotropic matter immersed in a magnetic field
- Anisotropic exciton diffusion in O-IDTBR from first-principles molecular dynamics in the first excited state
- Anisotropic Defect Diffusion in Layered CsPbBrxI3−x Perovskites
BibTeX
@misc{mangalwedhekar2026orientational,
title = {{Orientational frustration drives enhanced diffusion of anisotropic particles in a liquid labyrinth}},
author = {Rohit Mangalwedhekar and Limeng Ruan and Somen Nandi and Quentin Gresil and Marc Tondusson and Stephane Bancelin and Lea-Laetitia Pontani and Laurent Cognet},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.23340},
eprint = {2605.23340},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.23340},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Orientational frustration drives enhanced diffusion of anisotropic particles in a liquid labyrinth
AU - Rohit Mangalwedhekar
AU - Limeng Ruan
AU - Somen Nandi
AU - Quentin Gresil
AU - Marc Tondusson
AU - Stephane Bancelin
AU - Lea-Laetitia Pontani
AU - Laurent Cognet
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.23340
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.23340
AB - Transport of nanoscale objects in complex, structured environments plays a key role in a wide range of processes, from biomolecular dynamics in extracellular spaces to transport in porous materials such as filters and catalysts. While anomalous diffusion is well established, how particle anisotropy governs transport under geometric constraints remains unclear. Here we use 3D single-particle tracking to investigate the diffusion of stiff one-dimensional carbon nanotubes in a continuous soft matter network of interconnected chambers and constrictions. Transport is anomalous and antipersistent, with strong length dependent confinement and trapping, consistent with obstructed diffusion. Unexpectedly, however, escape from confinement is poorly sensitive to nanotube length as opposed to what would be expected of pore mediated transport. Despite a tenfold length increase and significantly enhanced trapping, escape time increased by only ~1.4. Single-particle orientational tracking reveals the origin of this weak scaling. Indeed, long nanotube, i.e. those with length comparable to the chamber dimensions, dynamically align with constrictions enabling efficient, geometry-assisted escape that offsets increased confinement while shorter nanotubes need to screen the volume to find their escape path. These results uncover an alignment-mediated transport mechanism that decouples confinement strength from escape kinetics, distinct from pore-mediated transport mechanisms, establishing a quantitative framework for anisotropic diffusion in complex environments.
ER -