title: Chiral diffusion of rotary nanomotors.
abstract: Neither a purely deterministic rotary nanomotor nor a purely orientational diffuser exhibits long-term translational motion, but coupling rotation to orientational diffusion yields translational diffusion. We demonstrate that this effective translational diffusion can easily dominate the ordinary thermal translational diffusion for experimentally relevant nanomotors, and that this effective diffusion is chiral. Unpowered chiral particles do not exhibit chiral diffusion, but a nanorotor has both handedness and an instantaneous direction of powered motion, thus-unlike an unpowered particle-its diffusional motion can distinguish left from right.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nourhani
authors.forename: Paul E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Lammert
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Borhan
authors.forename: Vincent H
authors.initials: VH
authors.lastname: Crespi
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004058:Diffusion; D007536:Isomerism; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D009038:Motion; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*