ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to the adsorption of water molecules on well-ordered (crystalline), defect-free surfaces, deserving the label ideal, spanning from the most ideal 0D case, a single water molecule on a surface, to the mono-and multilayer regime. It is strongly recommend to read the Surface Science Reports review articles of Thiel and Madey (1987), written before the irruption of the scanning probe techniques such as the STM and AFM, and those of Henderson (2002) and of Hodgson and Haq (2009) as well as the 2006 Chemical Review issue on the structure and chemistry at aqueous interfaces (volume 106, issue 4), in particular the review article by Verdaguer et al. (2006). In such articles detailed descriptions and discussions on many aspects related to water at interfaces can be found, with an extensive list of the surfaces that have been explored. Such works are indeed the sustaining pillars of the present chapter, which has been conceived to provide a global overview on the subject covering different topics in a simplified manner, such as electronic structure using frontier orbitals, substrate-induced structuring, confinement, RT ice, and the role of ions, to mention a few. The selected examples capture the essentials of the most relevant phenomena, avoiding a compendium of published water-substrate systems.
