Enhanced diffusion and anomalous transport of magnetic colloids driven above a two-state flashing potential

Abstract

We combine experiment and theory to investigate the diffusive and subdiffusive dynamics of paramagnetic colloids driven above a two-state flashing potential. The magnetic potential was realized by periodically modulating the stray field of a magnetic bubble lattice in a uniaxial ferrite garnet film. At large amplitudes of the driving field, the dynamics of particles resembles an ordinary random walk with a frequency-dependent diffusion coefficient. However, subdiffusive and oscillatory dynamics at short time scales is observed when decreasing the amplitude. We present a persistent random walk model to elucidate the underlying mechanism of motion, and perform numerical simulations to demonstrate that the anomalous motion originates from the dynamic disorder in the structure of the magnetic lattice, induced by slightly irregular shape of bubbles.