A GENERAL RELATION BETWEEN THE NUCLEATION WORK AND THE SIZE OF THE NUCLEUS IN MULTICOMPONENT NUCLEATION

We prove a general theorem that relates the variation of the work of f ormation of the critical nucleus with chemical potential and the size and composition of the critical nucleus. Applications are made to mult icomponent nucleation and to both isothermal and nonisothermal phase t ransformations. We show that the excess number of molecules and the ex cess entropy of the critical nucleus are thus accessible to experiment al determination with the help of data for the dependence of the nucle ation rate on supersaturation. The results derived do not rely on clas sical nucleation approximations and thus apply down to the smallest nu clei of a few molecules only.