A nuclear quantum view of the phase evolution of 2-dimensional water

Understanding water at interfaces is fundamentally important since it governs a series of phenomena, including wetting, transport, and chemical reactions. At angstrom/nanoscale confinement, the unusual behaviour of water that deviates from what is known for the bulk opens a new field of exploration that can change how these systems are understood. However, to exploit the potential of such properties, it is necessary to achieve a detailed understanding of the structure and phases of water under such conditions. Although theoretical studies on the phases of 2-dimensional (2D) confined water are found in the literature, the fundamental base still lacks experimental validation. Herein, using VESUVIO, we propose to determine the vibrational influences on the phase evolution and hydrogen bonding network of 2D water experimentally for the first time. Graphite single crystals able of accommodating water molecules in the interlayer spacing will be analysed by a sophisticated inelastic neutron scattering approach at different temperatures. The high sensitivity to hydrogen and deuterium provided by VESUVIO will strongly support our current investigation where promising results were achieved using synchrotron X-Ray pair distribution function and synchrotron IR microspectroscopy. The results will be exclusive and provide a better picture of the nature of phase transitions in 2D water and the still obscure hydrogen-bonding network at the quantum level, supported by theoretical simulations.