Monte Carlo Test of the Classical Theory for Heterogeneous Nucleation Barriers

Abstract

Flat walls facilitate the condensation of a supersaturated vapor: Classical theory of heterogeneous nucleation predicts that the free energy barrier $\Delta F_{\mathrm{het}}^{\ast }$ which needs to be overcome for the formation of sphere-cap shaped nucleation seeds is smaller than the barrier $\Delta F_{\mathrm{hom}}^{\ast }$ for spherical droplets in the bulk by a factor $0<f(\theta )<1$, which only depends on the contact angle $\theta$. In this letter we compute both $\Delta F_{\mathrm{hom}}^{\ast }$ and $\Delta F_{\mathrm{het}}^{\ast }$ from Monte Carlo simulations and test the theory for the lattice gas model (for which $\theta$ can be readily controlled). Even though the theory is only based on macroscopic arguments, it is shown to hold for experimentally relevant nanoscopic nucleation seeds ($20\le \Delta F_{\mathrm{hom}}^{\ast }/k_{B}T\le 200)$ if (independently estimated) line tension effects are considered.

4 pages

References in corpus (1)

• Contact line stability of ridges and drops

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