Coverage and Structure of Films of Spherical Particles Deposited after Diffusing in a Gravitational Field

We investigate the coverage and structure of a layer of particles deposited on a line after diffusion in a gravitational field. The dynamics of the depositing particles is controlled by the gravity number N_G(=d⁴ g/6k_BT), where d is the diameter of the particles, is the density difference between the particles and the solution, g is the acceleration due to gravity, k_B is Boltzmann's constant, and T is the temperature. The position-dependent flux of particles in a gap formed by two preadsorbed particles is estimated by superposition of solutions of a steady-state convective diffusion equation for the flux in the presence of a single preadsorbed particle. The saturation coverages are found with a recursion relation and are in good agreement with those obtained from Brownian dynamics simulation. The jamming coverage increases rapidly with increasing particle size, particularly for large values of . An algorithm is presented to generate adsorbed configurations from which the structure of the deposit is determined.