Surface-Induced Ferroelectric Ice on Pt(111)

Abstract

Optical sum-frequency vibrational spectroscopy and thermal desorption are used to study ice films grown on Pt(111). The strong enhancement of OH stretch resonances with film thickness provides clear evidence for the presence of polar ordering of water molecules in the films. The ordering is induced by the polar anchoring of the first ice monolayer on platinum. It exhibits a characteristic behavior of surface-induced ordering phenomena with a decay length of 30 monolayers.