Content area
Abstract
The research that I will present in this dissertation concerns qualitative factors relevant to thin water films and ice nucleation. The immediate goal is not to develop a precise quantitative theory of ice nucleation. Instead, the focus is on characterizing some molecular properties (e.g., bond strengths, bond orientations, range of surface effects, etc.) of freezing catalysts and interfacial water over a range of temperatures relevant to the ice nucleation process (i.e., 20 to -20 °C). From this, we can evaluate the plausibility of different mechanistic freezing hypotheses through comparison with experiment. In all studies, I use Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to study the intermolecular details of water and a surface species of interest. The dissertation is arranged with an introductory chapter, which primarily serves to place the research within the context of the field, then three chapters containing original research, each of which is a self-contained study that has either already been published or is currently under consideration for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Finally, an appendix at the end provides some additional details that have not been included in the articles.
