Phase transition of interfacial water at low-dimensions

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.