Molecular structure of water at interfaces: Wetting at the nanometer scale

An overview is given of recent studies on the structure and growth of water films at interfaces, covering a period of 5 years. The review is limited to studies on well-defined surfaces, mostly single crystalline interfaces where the microscopic mechanism of water adsorption could be more easily modeled. Topics discussed include the structure of water films at cryogenic temperatures (water layers on metals and nonmetallic surfaces), structure of water films at ambient conditions (monolayer on mica, thin films on mica, alkali halides), water/vapor interface, confined water (water confined between flat mica surfaces and studies of the layering structure of water using atomic force microscopy -AFM), and capillarity phenomena: water bridges and necks.