Structural and dynamical properties of nanoconfined supercooled water

TL;DR

This study develops a coarse-grained model to investigate how nanoconfinement influences ice formation in supercooled water, revealing two distinct ice phases under different pressure conditions.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new coarse-grained model for nanoconfined water and systematically studies ice phase formation using Monte Carlo simulations.

Findings

Identification of low-density crystal ice at low pressure

Discovery of high-density hexatic ice at high pressure

Intermediate phase between liquid and high-density crystal ice

Abstract

Bulk water presents a large number of crystalline and amorphous ices. Hydrophobic nanoconfinement is known to affect the tendency of water to form ice and to reduce the melting temperature. However, a systematic study of the ice phases in nanoconfinement is hampered by the computational cost of simulations at very low temperatures. Here we develop a coarse-grained model for a water monolayer in hydrophobic nanoconfinement and study the formation of ice by Mote Carlo simulations. We find two ice phases: low-density-crystal ice at low pressure and high-density hexatic ice at high pressure, an intermediate phase between liquid and high-density-crystal ice.