The Surface Diffusion Length of Water Molecules on Faceted Ice: A Reanalysis of “Roles of Surface/Volume Diffusion in the Growth Kinetics of Elementary Spiral Steps on Ice Basal Faces Grown from Water Vapor,” by Asakawa et al

We reanalyzed the measurements made by Asakawa et al. [1] of the growth velocities of singlemolecule-high steps on basal ice surfaces, as we believe the authors made a number of incorrect assumptions regarding ice growth parameters and bulk diffusion in their experiments. Applying what we believe are more accurate assumptions, we used the data in [1] to derive a surface diffusion length of xs ≈ 10 nm for water molecules on basal ice surfaces at T = −8.4 C, about 500 times lower than what was reported in [1]. Moreover, in our analysis we found that no information about the height of the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier could be obtained from these measurements.