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Unique properties of water in liquid and solid phases are largely attributed to hydrogen bonding (HB)1. Traditional analysis of HB typically involves vibrational spectroscopy, where shift of the stretching frequency of covalent O-H bond correlates with the strength of HB2. However, the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon are still debated3-5. Here we introduce a simple approximation based on an elastic dipole in external electric field, which captures a wide range of phenomena regarding HB in water systems. To this end, we use gypsum, with crystalline water embedded in heterostructure, to calibrate the HB strength through externally applied electric field. Our approach provided a coherent description on both HB and dielectric behaviour of nanoconfined water reported in the literature. In particular, it quantitatively reproduces the properties of confined water in various systems, rationalising behaviour like the reduced static permittivity observed in nanoconfined water6,7, enhancing our understanding of the importance of confined water in biological and technological systems. Finally, our work introduces hydrogen bond heterostructures (HBHs) as a new class of materials, offering electrical and chemical tunability, and a stronger, more directional bonding than that of van der Waals heterostructures.

Rights:

• Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 International
  

Keyword: hydrogen bonding, nanoconfined water
, electric field tuning

Date published: 2025-04-15

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Journal:

• Nature Communications (ISSN: 20411723) vol. 16 issue. 1 3447

Funding:

Manuscript type: Publisher's version (Version of record)

MDR DOI:

First published URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58608-6

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Updated at: 2026-05-18 10:24:25 +0900

Published on MDR: 2026-05-18 12:23:09 +0900