Fernanda C. Bononi | Searcharxiv

arXiv2022

Effect of Sodium Chloride Adsorption on the Surface Premelting of Ice

We characterise the structural properties of the quasi-liquid layer (QLL) at two low-index ice surfaces in the presence of sodium chloride (Na$^+/$Cl$^-$) ions by molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the presence of a high surface density of Na$^+/$Cl$^-$ pairs changes the surface melting behaviour from step-wise to gradual melting. The ions lead to an overall increase of the thickness and the disorder of the QLL, and to a low-temperature roughening transition of the air-ice interface. The local molecular structure of the QLL is similar to that of liquid water, and the differences between the basal and primary prismatic surface are attenuated by the presence of Na$^+/$Cl$^-$ pairs. These changes modify the crystal growth rates of different facets and the solvation environment at the surface of sea-water ice with a potential impact on light scattering and environmental chemical reactions.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2022

UV-Visible Absorption Spectra of Solvated Molecules by Quantum Chemical Machine Learning

Predicting UV-visible absorption spectra is essential to understanding photochemical processes and designing energy materials. Quantum chemical methods can deliver accurate calculations of UV-visible absorption spectra, but they are computationally expensive, especially for large systems or when one computes line shapes from thermal averages. Here, we present an approach to predicting UV-visible absorption spectra of solvated aromatic molecules by quantum chemistry (QC) and machine learning (ML). We show that a ML model, trained on the high-level QC calculation of the excitation energy of a set of aromatic molecules, can accurately predict the line shape of the lowest-energy UV-visible absorption band of several related molecules with less than 0.1 eV deviation with respect to reference experimental spectra. Applying linear decomposition analysis on the excitation energies, we unveil that our ML models probe vertical excitations of these aromatic molecules primarily by learning the atomic environment of their phenyl rings, which align with the physical origin of the $π\rightarrowπ^\star$ electronic transition. Our study provides an effective workflow that combines ML with quantum chemical methods to accelerate the calculations of UV-visible absorption spectra for various molecular systems.

physics.chem-ph↗