THEORY OF NUCLEATED WETTING

We compare a new theory of nucleated wetting with experimental data for the critical liquid mixture hexadecane + acetone. Good agreement is obtained for t greater-than-or-equal-to 8 x 10(-5). We determine that the droplet line tension L = L0t(x) where L0 approximately 1 x 10(-7) erg/cm and x = 0.76 +/- 0.02 while the spreading pressure S almost-equal-to S0t(beta1) where S0 approximately 0.007 erg/cm2. Theory and experiment exhibit a minimum in the nucleation data at a reduced temperature of t(m) (almost-equal-to 0.000 22 for an upper hexadecane-rich bulk phase of height L = 0.56 cm); theory predicts that t(m) scales as approximately L2/3(beta1-beta).