Facilitated diffusion is used especially in the case of large polar molecules and charged ions; once such ions are dissolved in water they cannot diffuse freely across cell membranes due to the hydrophobic nature of the fatty acid tails of the phospholipids that make up the bilayers. The type of carrier proteins used in facilitated diffusion is slightly different from those used in active transport. They are still transmembrane carrier proteins, but these are gated transmembrane channels, meaning they do not internally translocate, nor require ATP to function.