Water Clustering on Nanostructured Iron Oxide Films
Abstract
The adhesion of water to solid surfaces is characterized by the tendency to balance competing molecule-molecule and molecule-surface interactions. Hydroxyl groups form strong hydrogen bonds to water molecules and are known to substantially influence the wetting behavior of oxide surfaces, but it is not well-understood how these hydroxyl groups and their distribution on a surface affect the molecular-scale structure at the interface. We report a study of water clustering on a moire-structured iron oxide thin film with a controlled density of hydroxyl groups. While large amorphous monolayer islands form on the bare film, the hydroxylated iron oxide film acts as a hydrophilic nanotemplate, causing the formation of a regular array of ice-like hexametric nanoclusters. The formation of this ordered phase is localized at the nanometer scale; with increasing water coverage, ordered and amorphous water are found to coexist at adjacent hydroxylated and hydroxyl-free domains of the moire structure.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 30, 2014
- Accession Number
- AD1012008
Entities
People
- Carrie A. Farberow
- Erik Laegsgaard
- Felix Rieboldt
- Flemming Besenbacher
- Guowen Peng
- Helene Zeuthen
- Jan Knudsen
- Lindsay R. Merte
- Manos Mavrikakis
- Ralf Bechstein
- Stefan Wendt
Organizations
- University of Wisconsin–Madison