%0 Journal Article
%T Enhanced Saturation Coverages in Adsorption-Desorption Processes
%A Paul R. Van Tassel
%A Pascal Viot
%A Gilles Tarjus
%A Jeremy J. Ramsden
%A Julian Talbot
%J Physics
%D 1999
%I arXiv
%R 10.1063/1.480715
%X Many experimental studies of protein deposition on solid surfaces involve alternating adsorption/desorption steps. In this paper, we investigate the effect of a desorption step (separating two adsorption steps) on the kinetics, the adsorbed-layer structure, and the saturation density. Our theoretical approach involves a density expansion of the pair distribution function and an application of an interpolation formula to estimate the saturation density as a function of the density at which the desorption process commences, $\rho_1$, and the density of the depleted configuration, $\rho_2$. The theory predicts an enhancement of the saturation density compared with that of a simple, uninterrupted RSA process and a maximum in the saturation density when $\rho_2={2/3}\rho_1$. The theoretical results are in qualitative and in semi-quantitative agreement with the results of numerical simulations.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/9906429v1