Growth of ice crystal is of critical importance in life on earth and its molecular-level understanding remains unclear. In our recent study we found, using molecular dynamics simulations of ice growth, that two forms of ice arrangements, hexagonal and cubic, develop competitively within the same ice layer during layer formation on the basal face of hexagonal ice. This in-layer stacking competition elucidates the anisotropic growth kinetics and the formation of planar defective regions in initial metastable ice. In this work, we further investigate the nucleation kinetics of layer formation during ice growth. By performing additional molecular dynamics simulations with large ice-water interface, we analyze the nucleation process based on the cluster analysis. We will present the rates of two-dimensional ice nucleation on the basal and prismatic interfaces and the size of critical nuclei on both interfaces. This study provides the fundamental insights into the molecular-level understanding of two-dimensional growth of ice crystal. 

Molecular dynamics study of nucleation kinetics during 2D ice growth

248th National Meeting (2014)

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