We study the nucleation of the liquid phase from a supersaturated vapor in
two dimensions (2D). Using different Monte Carlo simulation methods, we
calculate the free energy barrier for nucleation, the line tension and also
investigate the size and shape of the critical nucleus. The study is carried
out at an intermediate level of supersaturation(away from the spinodal limit).
In 2D, a large cut-off in the truncation of the Lennard-Jones (LJ) potential is
required to obtain converged results, whereas low cut-off (say, 2.5σ is
generally sufficient in three dimensional studies, where σ is the LJ
diameter) leads to a substantial error in the values of line tension,
nucleation barrier and characteristics of the critical cluster. It is found
that in 2D, the classical nucleation theory (CNT) fails to provide a reliable
estimate of the free energy barrier. It underestimates the barrier by as much
as 70% at the saturation-ratio S=1.1 (defined as S=P/PC, where PC is the
coexistence pressure at reduced temperature T⋆=0.427). Interestingly,
CNT has been found to overestimate the nucleation free energy barrier in three
dimensional (3D)systems near the triple point. In fact, the agreement with CNT
is worse in 2D than in 3D. Moreover, the existing theoretical estimate of the
line tension overestimates the value significantly.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figure