Abstract
Studies of the structure of supported water clusters provide a means for obtaining a rigorous molecular-scale description of the initial stages of heterogeneous ice nucleation: a process of importance to fields as diverse as atmospheric chemistry, astrophysics and biology. Here, we report the observation and characterization of metal-supported water hexamers and a family of hydrated nanoclusters—heptamers, octamers and nonamers—through a combination of low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy experiments and first-principles electronic-structure calculations. Aside from achieving unprecedented resolution of the cyclic water hexamer—the so-called smallest piece of ice—we identify and explain a hitherto unknown competition between the ability of water molecules to simultaneously bond to a substrate and to accept hydrogen bonds. This competition also rationalizes previous structure predictions for water clusters on other substrates.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to M. Scheffler for valuable discussions. K.M. is grateful to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for a Heisenberg scholarship. This work was conducted as part of a EURYI scheme. See www.esf.org/euryi.
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Michaelides, A., Morgenstern, K. Ice nanoclusters at hydrophobic metal surfaces. Nature Mater 6, 597–601 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1940
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1940
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