The curvature dependence of surface tension of small droplets

Abstract

The curvature dependence of the surface tension has been calculated via a general thermodynamic route from results based on molecular dynamics and density gradient calculations on liquid drops. It is shown that in the region of applicability of thermodynamics, the curvature corrections are small and are described asymptotically by Tolman's equations. However, in contrast to earlier calculations the decrease in surface tension with decreasing droplet radius is succeeded by a region in which the surface tension increases again to values higher than the asymptotic value of the surface tension of a planar interface. Applications to nucleation theory are discussed.