droplets on surfaces are not complete spheres and so the area of the interface between the droplet and the surrounding fluid is less than a sphere's . This reduction in surface area of the nucleus reduces the height of the barrier to nucleation and so speeds nucleation up exponentially.

Nucleation can also start at the surface of a liquid. For example, computer simulations of gold nanoparticles show that the crystal phase sometimes nucleates at the liquid-gold surface.

Computer simulation studies of simple models

1.Previous
3.Next