Nature Communications (Apr 2020)

Origins of fast diffusion of water dimers on surfaces

  • Wei Fang,
  • Ji Chen,
  • Philipp Pedevilla,
  • Xin-Zheng Li,
  • Jeremy O. Richardson,
  • Angelos Michaelides

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15377-8
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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The experimental observation that water dimers diffuse more rapidly than monomers across materials’ surfaces is yet to be clarified. Here the authors show by ab initio calculations classical and quantum mechanical mechanisms for faster water dimer diffusion on a broad range of metal and non-metal surfaces.