The performance of molecular communication is significantly impacted by the reception process of the messenger molecules. The receptors' size and density, however, have yet to be investigated. In this letter, we analyze the effect of receptor density and size on the signal reception of an absorbing receiver with receptors. The results show that, when the total receptor area is the same, better hitting probability is achieved by using a higher number of relatively small receptors. In addition, deploying receptors, which cover a small percentage of the receiver surface, is able to create an effective communication channel that has a detectable signal level.

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Understanding Communication via Diffusion (CvD) is key to molecular communications research since it dominates the movement at the nano-scale. The researcher needs to properly understand the random diffusion of the molecules for the analysis of a molecular communication system. This chapter aims explaining the dynamics of diffusion from a communication engineer's perspective as well as providing useful hints for an effective simulation design by discussing some key intricacies. The chapter starts with a brief survey of simulators for molecular communications, followed by the basics of the simulation of Brownian motion and CvD. Several intricacies are addressed to help the researcher in simulation design, such as the number of replications required in terms of movement and bit sequence. We utilize this information further by discussing the design of more complex CvD systems such as tunnel-based approach that utilizes destroyer molecules and distributed simulator design based on HLA. Introduction of more complex CvD systems provides significant improvements in data rate and communications in general, bridging the gap between human-scale and nano-scale systems and enabling nanonetworking as a viable technology.