Phase transition of interfacial water at low-dimensions

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/ae12da

Abstract Water molecules can form hydrogen bonds. At the solid surfaces, the preferential alignment of water molecules due to the heterogeneous atomic distributions can induce ordered hydrogen bond networks of water molecules with spatially heterogeneous patterns and slower dynamics compared to bulk water. Both the confinement and the surface atomic structures can induce the water phase transitions at low dimensional spaces. Here, we review how the phase transitions of interfacial water affect the surface physical behaviors, such as wetting, ice nucleation and the terahertz-wave-water interactions, from solid materials to the biological surfaces. These works help extend our knowledge of the physics properties of the interfacial water, particularly the multi-phase behaviors in materials and biology sciences.

Keywords: interfacial water ordered water phase transition hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity THz electric waves

Received: 22 August 2025
Revised: 10 October 2025
Accepted manuscript online: 14 October 2025

PACS:	05.70.-a	(Thermodynamics)
	64.60.Q-	(Nucleation)

Fund: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 22576126, 12074394, and 12022508). We are also thankful for the computing resources and technical support provided by Shanghai Snowlake Technology Co. Ltd. and the Shanghai Supercomputing Center.

Corresponding Authors: Chunlei Wang
E-mail: wangchunlei1982@shu.edu.cn

Cite this article:

Wenlong Liang(梁文龙), Yujie Huang(黄雨婕), Yue Zhang(张悦), and Chunlei Wang(王春雷) Phase transition of interfacial water at low-dimensions 2026 Chin. Phys. B 35 020501

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