Ion-Induced Nucleation: The Importance of Ionic Polarizability

We have examined the effect of ionic polarizability on the ion-induced nucleation of water for a broad range of hard-sphere ions. These simulations have shown that polarization has a smaller effect on the nucleation free-energy barrier than it does on the free energies of small clusters and, in some cases, results in higher Gibbs free-energy barriers for the polarizable ions. These findings underscore the importance of considering not only small cluster sizes but the entire nucleation free-energy profile because the free-energy trends at small clusters may not accurately reflect trends in the barrier height.