Subcritical and Supercritical Nanodroplet Evaporation: A Molecular Dynamics Investigation

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the subcritical and supercritical evaporation of a Lennard-Jones (LJ) argon nanodroplet in its own vapor. Using a new technique to control both the ambient temperature and pressure, a range of conditions are considered to define a transition line between subcritical and supercritical evaporation. The evaporation is considered to be supercritical if the surface temperature of the droplet reaches the LJ argon critical temperature during its lifetime. Between ambient temperatures of 300 K and 800 K, the transition from subcritical to supercritical evaporation is observed to occur at an ambient pressure 1.4 times greater than the LJ argon critical pressure. For subcritical conditions, the droplet lifetimes obtained from the simulations are compared to independently predicted lifetimes from the D² law.