Dielectric ordering of water molecules arranged in a dipolar lattice.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32764722.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-17832-y and PMC identifier 7411056.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Intermolecular hydrogen bonds impede long-range (anti-)ferroelectric order of water. We confine H<sub>2</sub>O molecules in nanosized cages formed by ions of a dielectric crystal. Arranging them in channels at a distance of ~5 Å with an interchannel separation of ~10 Å prevents the formation of hydrogen networks while electric dipole-dipole interactions remain effective. Here, we present measurements of the temperature-dependent dielectric permittivity, pyrocurrent, electric polarization and specific heat that indicate an order-disorder ferroelectric phase transition at T<sub>0</sub> ≈ 3 K in the water dipolar lattice. Ab initio molecular dynamics and classical Monte Carlo simulations reveal that at low temperatures the water molecules form ferroelectric domains in the ab-plane that order antiferroelectrically along the channel direction. This way we achieve the long-standing goal of arranging water molecules in polar order. This is not only of high relevance in various natural systems but might open an avenue towards future applications in biocompatible nanoelectronics.