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Nucleation near a critical temperature

Journal of Statistical Physics volume 20, pages 385–413 (1979)Cite this article

Abstract

In this paper we extend the conventional theory of nucleation to take in the effects of excluded-volume interference between the precritical droplets present prior to phase transformation. It is shown that, close to the critical point, the effect of excluded volume is to cause a sizable increase in the surface free energy of the critical nucleus. A corresponding increase in the barrier to nucleation explains the large undercoolings achieveable experimentally in this region. Our results are compared with recent experimental measurements of Heady and Cahn and favorable agreement is found.

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Author notes

  1. Robert McGraw & Howard Reiss

    Present address: Department of Chemistry, University of California, Los Angeles

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey

    Robert McGraw & Howard Reiss

Authors
  1. Robert McGraw
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  2. Howard Reiss
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Additional information

Supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant NSF CHE 76-21297.

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McGraw, R., Reiss, H. Nucleation near a critical temperature. J Stat Phys 20, 385–413 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01011779

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01011779

Key words

  • Nucleation near critical point
  • excluded volume in nucleation
  • hard sphere boundary tension
  • scaled particle theory
  • supercooling limit