Nucleation Dynamics of Water Nanodroplets

The origin of the condensation of water begins at the nanoscale, a length-scale that is challenging to probe for liquids. In this work we directly image heterogeneous nucleation of water nanodroplets by in situ transmission electron microscopy. Using gold nanoparticles bound to a flat surface as heterogeneous nucleation sites, we observe nucleation and growth of water nanodroplets. The growth of nanodroplet radii follows the power law: R(t)similar to(t-t(0)), where similar to 0.2-0.3.