Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Surface water

Pentagonal ice in chains

Nature Materials volume 8, pages 372–373 (2009)Cite this article

One-dimensional islands that grow during ice nucleation at low temperatures on a copper(110) surface are identified as chains of water-molecule pentagons. This unexpected molecular arrangement optimizes oxygen-atom proximity to preferred bonding sites on the metal, while minimizing strain in the hydrogen-bond network.

The role of water in many important natural and technological processes makes understanding the interactions between water and materials a high-priority research endeavour. The first water layer on a solid is of particular interest because it acts as a structural template for the layers that follow, it sets the boundary conditions for water transport, and it governs aqueous surface chemistry. A telling measure of the community's interest in this area is the list of 1,165 references in M. A. Henderson's 2002 review1.

This is a preview of subscription content

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: A top view schematic of the proposed pentagonal structure.

References

  1. Henderson, M. A. Surf. Sci. Rep. 46, 1–308 (2002).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Yamada, T., Tamamori, S. & Okuyama, H. Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 036105 (2006).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Carrasco, J. et al. Nature Mater. 8, 427–431 (2009).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Feibelman, P. J. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 10, 4688–4691 (2008).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Cerdá, J. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 116101 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Science and Engineering. Sandia is operated by the Lockheed Martin Co. for the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Peter J. Feibelman is at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-1415, USA. pjfeibe@sandia.gov

    Peter J. Feibelman

Authors
  1. Peter J. Feibelman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Feibelman, P. Pentagonal ice in chains. Nature Mater 8, 372–373 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2428

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2428

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing