The morphology of thin water films on Pt(1Â 1Â 1) probed by chloroform adsorption

We have investigated water adsorption on Pt(1 1 1) using chloroform to probe the structure and binding sites available on the ice surface. A stable adsorption site appears, associated with growth of ice crystallites on the (39×39)R16° wetting layer, and disappears slowly as the film grows and loses its registry to the wetting layer. The 39 multilayer consists of ordered crystalline ice nuclei which aggregate progressively into a continuous incommensurate ice as the film grows to ∼40 layers, the entire film and wetting layer restructuring into an oriented bulk ice only for films more than 50 layers thick.