2013/07/03 by Masao Iwamatsu, Iwamatsu, Masao
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Chemical and Physical Properties of Materials #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.soft #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1307.0956
28 pages 12 figures, Chapter 3 of "Advances in Contact Angle, Wettability and Adhesion", ed. by K.L. Mittal, Scrivener Publishing LLC, ISBN:9781118472927 to be publised
arxiv created 2013/07/03 · openalex publication_date 2013/07/03 · arxiv updated 2013/07/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
It is widely believed that heterogeneous nucleation occurs without an activation process when the surface is completely wettable. In this report, we review our previous work [J.Chem.Phys \bf 134, 234709 (2011)] to show that the critical nucleus (droplet) can exist and the activation process may be observable. In fact, a critical nucleus and a free energy barrier always exist if the surface potential or the disjoining pressure allows for the first-order pre-wetting transition on a completely wettable substrate where the contact angle is zero. Furthermore, the critical nucleus changes character from the critical nucleus of surface phase transition below bulk coexistence (undersaturation) to the critical nucleus of bulk heterogeneous nucleation above the coexistence (oversaturation) when it crosses the coexistence. In this paper the morphology and work of formation of a critical nucleus on a completely-wettable substrate are re-examined to point out the possibility of observing a critical droplet on a completely wettable substrate.