Crystalline embryos at ice-vapor interfaces

Abstract

The nucleation of small monolayer ice-like clusters at the basal and prism ice-vapor interfaces is considered. It is found that the basal surfaces prefer triangular embryos with an orientation that reverses from layer to layer, whereas the most stable clusters on the prism surfaces are rectangular in configuration. At any given saturation ratio, the preferred prism clusters are found to have a critical energy of formation significantly lower than that of the basal clusters, basically because of differences in cluster corner free energies.