What makes a material a good ice nucleating agent? Despite the importance of heterogeneous ice nucleation to a variety of fields, from cloud science to microbiology, major gaps in our understanding of this ubiquitous process still prevent us from answering this question. In this talk, I will discuss recent simulation studies in which we have examined the ability of generic crystalline substrates to promote ice nucleation as a function of the hydrophobicity and the morphology of the surface. I will show how we find that the lattice mismatch of the surface with respect to ice, customarily regarded as the most important requirement for a good ice nucleating agent, is at most desirable but not a requirement. On the other hand, the balance between the morphology of the surface and its hydrophobicity can significantly alter the ice nucleation rate and can also lead to the formation of up to three different faces of ice on the same substrate. This work was done in collaboration mainly with Martin Fitzner, Gabriele Sosso, and Steve Cox and some of the reults can be found in: J. Chem. Phys. <b>142</b>, 184704 (2015); J. Chem. Phys. <b>142</b>, 184705 (2015); JACS DOI: 10.1021/jacs.5b08748

Many faces of heterogeneous ice nucleation: Interplay between surface morphology and hydrophobicity

251st National Meeting (2016)

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