A molecular dynamics study on surface properties of supercooled water

Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to study the surface properties of water in a temperature range from 228 to 293 K by using the extended simple point charge (SPC/E) and four-site TIP4P potentials. The calculated surface tension increases with the decrease of temperature, and moreover the slopes of the surface tension-temperature curves show a weak rise below 273 K, whereas no obvious anomalies appear near 228 K, which accords with the previous experiments. Compared with the measured values, the SPC/E potential shows a good agreement, and the TIP4P potential underestimates the surface tension. The main reason for that may be the reasonable description of the surface structure of supercooled water for the SPC/E. When simulating the orientational distributions of water molecules near the surface, the SPC/E potential produces higher ordering and larger surface potentials than the TIP4P potential.