Universal stretched exponential relaxation in nanoconfined water

Understanding the behavior of water confined at the nanometer scale is a fundamental problem not only in physics but also in life sciences, geosciences, and atmospheric sciences. Here, we examine spatial and dynamic heterogeneities in water confined in nanoporous silica using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The simulations reveal intermixed low-density water and high-density water with distinct local structures in nanopores of silica. The MD simulations also show dynamic heterogeneities in nanoconfined water. The temporal decay of cage correlation functions for room temperature and supercooled, nanoconfined water is very well described by stretched exponential relaxation, exp(−(t/τ)β). The exponent β has a unique value, d/(d + 2), which agrees with an exact result for diffusion in systems with static, random traps in d = 3 dimensions.