The thermodynamics of a liquid lens

Abstract

The conditions of equilibrium of a small lens of one liquid at the surface of another are obtained in terms of the surface and line tensions. Gravity is neglected. The intersection of the three surfaces of tension, which is also the line of tension, is separated from the surfaces and lines on which surface and linear adsorptions vanish by distances of the order of the range of the intermolecular forces. These separations determine how the surface and line tensions depend on curvature. Experimental and theoretical values of the line tension, although uncertain, allow estimates to be made of the size of systems in which these effects are appreciable.