The cool state of water: Infrared insights into ice

Water is an extraordinary substance. It owes its characteristic anomalous properties to a network of strong hydrogen bonds present between water molecules. In ice, water molecules hold regular positions in the crystal. Nevertheless, the behaviour of ice can be dynamic and exciting, especially at the surface. At temperatures well below bulk melting, the surface of ice is covered by a liquid premelted layer. This water layer governs many geophysical processes and plays a role in the low friction of ice.
This thesis describes several properties of ice and ice-related systems at the molecular level. For this purpose we have employed a variety of spectroscopic techniques and made use of stretching vibrations as sensitive probes of the molecular structure. The position, amplitude, and width of the stretching bands are utilized to describe the molecular properties and structure.
The vibrational dynamics of water molecules in ice and hydrated salts are studied in Chapters 4 and 5. The surface properties of ice and the premelting of the surface are investigated in Chapters 6 and 7. Chapter 8 deals with the effects of resonant molecular couplings on the surfaces of ice and liquid water. In the last two chapters we studied the surface properties of water and oil emulsions. The effect of freezing water on the surface of oil droplets in water is investigated in Chapter 9. The surface structure of water droplets and ice nanocrystals immersed in a hydrophobic environment is discussed in Chapter 10.