Structure of water adsorbed on the open Cu(1 1 0) surface: H-up, H-down, or both?

We investigated the structure of the water monolayer on an open surface, Cu(1 1 0), at low temperature. We found that water adsorbs molecularly, adopting a 2:1 ratio of H-down and H-up configurations. This behavior of water on an open surface is quite different to the behavior on close-packed surfaces, such as Pt(1 1 1) and Ru(0 0 0 1), where water adsorbs primarily H-down, but can be understood on the basis of a range of different water adsorption sites across the observed (7 × 8) unit cell.