Investigation of the hydrogen bonding in ice Ih by first-principles density function methods

It is a well recognized difficult task to simulate the vibrational dynamics of ices using the density functional theory (DFT), and there has thus been rather limited success in modelling the inelastic neutron scattering (INS) spectra for even the simplest structure of ice, ice Ih, particularly in the translational region below 400 cm(-1). The reason is partly due to the complex nature of hydrogen bonding (H-bond) among water-water molecules which require considerable improvement of the quantum mechanical simulation methods, and partly owing to the randomness of protons in ice structures which often requires simulation of large super-lattices. In this report, we present the first series of successful simulation results for ice Ih using DFT methods. On the basis of the recent advancement in the DFT programs, we have achieved for the first time theoretical outcomes that not only reproduce the rotational frequencies between 500 to 1200 cm(-1) for ice Ih, but also the two optic peaks at ∼240 and 320 cm(-1) in the translational region of the INS spectra [J. C. Li, J. Chem. Phys 105, 6733 (1996)]. Besides, we have also investigated the impact of pairwise configurations of H(2)O molecules on the H-bond and found that different proton arrangements of pairwise H(2)O in the ice Ih crystal lattice could not alter the nature of H-bond as significantly as suggested in an early paper [J. C. Li and D. K. Ross, Nature (London) 365, 327 (1993)], i.e., reproducing the two experimental optic peaks do not need to invoke the two H-bonds as proposed in the previous model which led to considerable debates. The results of this work suggest that the observed optic peaks may be attributed to the coupling between the two bands of H-O stretching modes in H(2)O. The current computational work is expected to shed new light on the nature of the H-bonds in water, and in addition to offer a new approach towards probing the interaction between water and biomaterials for which H-bond is essential.