Related papers: Direct visualization of molecular stacking in quas…
Among the over eighteen different forms of water ice, only the common hexagonal phase and a cubic phase are present in nature on Earth. The existence of these two polytypes, almost degenerate in energy, represents one of the most important…
Ice I has three forms depending on the stacking arrangements of its layers: hexagonal ice Ih, cubic ice Ic, and stacking disordered ice Isd. Below ~60 K, amorphous water becomes metastable, and the formation of any form of ice I is often…
Phase-contrast transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of hexagonal ice (Ih) along [0001] sometimes shows a honeycomb-like pattern, often interpreted as individual oxygen columns in single crystals. Here, we show that this pattern commonly…
This monograph reviews our current understanding of the physical dynamics of ice crystal growth, focusing on the spontaneous formation of complex structures from water vapor (called snow crystals) as a function of temperature,…
In this work, we conducted molecular dynamics simulations to study the fracture mechanism of ice crystals in a bulk phase and at ice-ice interfaces at the atomistic scale. We show that there exists a narrow disordered interfacial layer…
The paper discusses the features of supercooled water thin film of width $d=3.97$~nm contained by the perfect graphene layers and crystallizing under external stationary electric field. It was found that the electric field applied…
In this work, we perform a systematic computer simulation study of ice premelting, and explore the thickness and structure of quasi-liquid layers formed at the interface of ice with substrates of different hydrophilicity. Our study shows…
The hexagonal-2H crystal phase of Ge recently emerged as a promising direct bandgap semiconductor in the mid-infrared range providing new prospects of additional optoelectronic functionalities of group-IV semiconductors (Ge and SiGe). The…
Machine learning models are rapidly becoming widely used to simulate complex physicochemical phenomena with ab initio accuracy. Here, we use one such model as well as direct density functional theory (DFT) calculations to investigate the…
Hexagonal ice ($\rm{I_h}$), the most common structure of ice, displays a variety of fascinating properties. Despite major efforts, a theoretical description of all its properties is still lacking. In particular, correctly accounting for its…
Desorption of H2O films ranging from 53 nanometres to 101 micrometre thicknesses have been investigated using a quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM) and temperature-programmed desorption. Three desorption stages are observed belonging to…
The structural dynamics of ice in the freezing - thawing process has been studied in the context of the concept of two-phase water. It was previously shown that water is a two-phase system consisting of free and bound (liquid crystal)…
A cascade of phase transitions from square to hexagonal lattice is studied in 2D system of particles interacting via core-softened potential. Due to the presence of two length-scales of repulsion, different local configurations with four,…
The selection of stacking order in a broad range of close-packed polymorphic materials remains a challenging enigma. Using in situ cryogenic transmission electron microscopy, we uncover the atomistic mechanisms governing the vapour…
Water, a ubiquitous and fundamental substance, plays a critical role across a wide range of disciplines from physics and chemistry to biology and engineering. Despite theoretical predictions of several phases of two-dimensional (2D) ice…
Despite the ubiquity of ice, a molecular-resolution image of ice crystallized from liquid water or the resulting defect structure has never been obtained. Here, we report the stabilization and angstrom-resolution electron imaging of ice Ih…
The alkali halides, known as ionic crystals, have the NaCl-type or CsCl-type structure as the ground state. We study the structural, vibrational, and electronic properties of two-dimensional (2D) ionic crystals from first-principles. Two…
Among the many ice polymorphs, ice I, that is present in nature at ambient pressure, occurs with two different structures, i.e. the stable hexagonal (Ih) or the metastable cubic (Ic) one. An accurate analysis of cubic ice Ic was missing…
Snow crystals growing from water vapor occasionally exhibit morphologies with three-fold (trigonal) symmetry, even though the ice crystal lattice has a molecular structure with six-fold symmetry. In extreme cases, thin platelike snow…
Dissociation of gas hydrates below 240 K leads to the formation of a metastable form of water ice, so called cubic ice (Ic). Through its defective nature and small particle size the surface film composed of such material is incapable of…