Layering Governs Phase Transitions in Nanoconfined Water
phase diagram composed of integer-layer ice bands bounded by CLPT and VLPT lines. Motivated by this picture, we develop a minimal Landau free energy model in which the quadratic coefficient oscillates with channel height, encoding geometric commensurability between molecular size and confinement. This oscillatory Landau framework qualitatively reproduces the simulated phase boundaries and demonstrates that layering acts as an active thermodynamic field governing ordering transitions in strongly confined liquids.
Authors
- Chengzhen Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7562-0771)
- Bofeng Bai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6412-4390)
- M. Neek-Amal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7277-6965)
- Yuntao Du
Institutions
- University of Antwerp (BE)
- State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering
- Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University (IR)
- Xi'an Jiaotong University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
- Published
- 2026-07-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.6c01901
- Primary Topic
- Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China