Surface energy of solids

Abstract

At least five conclusions may be formulated after perusing this review.1. No method so far suggested for measuring the surface energy or surface tension of solids is satisfactory. 2. This failure may be caused, above all, by the fact that solids, contrary to liquids, cannot alter their shape without changing the strain energy in their volumes. The changes in strain energy are so much greater than those in surface energy that the latter remain unrecognized. 3. Solids possess an energy unknown in typical liquids. This cuticular energy exists because the surface region of innumerable solids has a chemical composition, a frequency of lattice defects, and so on, different from those in the bulk. 4. Small solid particles obtained by cooling of vapors, by grinding, or many other methods, usually have a less perfect lattice and more impurity than have bigger crystals of nominally identical composition. Hence, the cuticular energy of the former exceeds that of the latter. 5. Cuticular energy implies no tendency of the surface to contract, i.e., no surface tension. The theoretical calculations of the difference in energy between a broken and an unbroken crystal, if correct, afford a quantity which is related to cuticular energy and, like this, causes no contractile tendency.