Figure 4.
Dimensionality affects the effectiveness of diffusive transport. Molecules (red spheres) reach reaction targets (blue spheres) at distance L by diffusing a) along one dimensional/linear trajectory; b) over a 2D plane and c) through a 3D space. Red dashed curves give “realistic” trajectories. The plot in d) gives the average arrival times as the function of the domain size for one, two and three-dimensional cases. The arrival times increase with dimensionality. Note that the 3D time is significantly higher than either 2D or 1D. Parameters used to generate these plots are D = 1 × 10−7 cm2/s and a = 1 µm.