Electrocrystallization of Supercooled Water Confined between Graphene Layers

Abstract: A key feature of the crystallization of supercooled water confined in an applied static electric field is that the structural order here is determined not only by usual thermodynamic and kinematic factors (degree of supercooling, difference between chemical potentials for a liquid and a crystal, and viscosity) but also by the strength and direction of the applied electric field, size of a system (size effects), and the geometry of bounding surfaces. In this work, the electrocrystallization of supercooled water confined between ideally flat parallel graphene sheets at a temperature of $T=268$~K has been considered in this work. It has been established that structural order is determined by two characteristic modes. The initial mode correlates with the orientation of dipolar water molecules by the applied electric field. The subsequent mode is characterized by the relaxation of a metastable system to a crystalline phase. The uniform electric field applied perpendicularly to the graphene sheets suppresses structural ordering, whereas the field applied in the lateral direction promotes cubic ice $I_c$.