Random sequential adsorption

Abstract By placing at random disks onto a surface, but adsorbing only those that do not overlap previously adsorbed disks, one will finally reach the jamming limit beyond which no more disks can be adsorbed. We find, using computer simulations, that the coverage at the jamming limit is θ = 0·547 ± 0·002 for disks and θ = 0·562 ± 0·002 for aligned squares. For the jammed state we have evaluated the pair correlation function for the disks and the size distribution for non-overlapping holes. The coverage saturates asymptotically as τ −1 2 , where τ is the number of attempts to place a new disk. From electron microscopic examination of uranyl acetate stained ferritin, we conclude that this iron storage protein adsorbs on carbon in a way consistent with our results for random sequential adsorption.