Figure 10. Molecular capture spans the gap and enhances recapture events.

The simulation results from Figure 9 were pooled to obtain 60 events for each capture bond. (A) An analysis was conducted to investigate the separation of the sphere from the surface when bonds form in the absence of pre-existing bonds. First capture bonds formed efficiently across the range of gap sizes. Solid black line: equilibrium distribution for the gap size. Red circles: distribution of separation distances when the first bond formation event occurs. Green diamonds: distribution of separation distances observed when the first recapture, e.g. second capture, bond forms. Blue dashed line with triangles: distribution of separation distances when the second recapture, e.g. third capture, bond forms. (B) Once the sphere captured to the surface once, the first and second recapture bonds formed more quickly. The characteristic binding times describing the first linear segment (inset) for the initial capture bond, the first recapture bond, and the second recapture bond were 0.143 s, 0.081 s, and 0.085 s, respectively.