Abstract
In order to clarify the growth of ice crystals containing adsorbed silane coupling agents (SCAs), a fundamental and microscale analysis has been conducted. By using an optical microscope, the growth patterns of the ice crystals were experimentally investigated while neglecting the influence of heat flux. It was found that some SCAs that particularly have three hydrophilic groups in a molecule can be adsorbed by the ice crystal surface preventing further growth of the crystals towards a-axis direction. We also investigated the surface of the ice crystals by using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) in order to determine the influence of SCA on the microscale surface structure. Systematic grooves aligned about 75° to the hexagonal side on one bipyramidal plane were observed. Those grooves were at least 500 nm long, 30∼70nm deep, and existed at about 200 nm intervals.
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