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Updated: May 30, 2026

Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Published on: May 27, 2018
Dewetting growth of crystalline water ice on a hydrogen saturated Rh(111) surface at 135 K
Atsushi Beniya1, Takanori Koitaya, Kozo Mukai
1The Institute for Solid State Physics, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan.
Abstract:
We investigated the water (D(2)O) adsorption at 135 K on a hydrogen pre-adsorbed Rh(111) surface using temperature programmed desorption and infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRAS) in ultrahigh vacuum. With increasing the hydrogen coverage, the desorption temperature of water decreases. At the saturation coverage of hydrogen, dewetting growth of water ice was observed: large three-dimensional ice grains are formed. The activation energy of water desorption from the hydrogen-saturated Rh(111) surface is estimated to be 51 kJ/mol. The initial sticking probability of water decreases from 0.46 on the clean surface to 0.35 on the hydrogen-saturated surface. In IRAS measurements, D-down species were not observed on the hydrogen saturated surface. The present experimental results clearly show that a hydrophilic Rh(111) clean surface changes into a hydrophobic surface as a result of hydrogen adsorption.
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