Binary to unary transition problem in nucleation theory

Abstract

The limiting behavior in binary nucleation theory when one component vanishes is examined. Failure of the traditional continuum theory to predict the transition from binary to unary nucleation is due to breakdown of the continuum approximation. A semidiscrete model is constructed for the transition regime. For binary systems of arbitrary composition, a general formula that combines the semi-discrete and continuum nucleation rates is proposed. Comparison with the exact solution calculated using a fully discrete matrix method shows good agreement.