Mean-field kinetic nucleation theory.

A new semiphenomenological model of homogeneous vapor-liquid nucleation is proposed in which the cluster kinetics follows the "kinetic approach to nucleation" and the thermodynamic part is based on the revised Fisher droplet model with the mean-field argument for the cluster configuration integral. The theory is nonperturbative in a cluster size and as such is valid for all clusters down to monomers. It contains two surface tensions: macroscopic (planar) and microscopic. The latter is a temperature dependent quantity related to the vapor compressibility factor at saturation. For Lennard-Jones fluids the microscopic surface tension possesses a universal behavior with the parameters found from the mean-field density functional calculations. The theory is verified against nucleation experiments for argon, nitrogen, water, and mercury, demonstrating very good agreement with experimental data. Classical nucleation theory fails to predict experimental results when a critical cluster becomes small.