Final Report Summary - KISMOL (Kinetics in Soft Molecular Layers- from interstellar ices to polymorph control)
Mobility of molecules in solid or on the surfaces of solids plays a key role in many different processes such as the formation of molecules in interstellar space and the change is molecular packing inside the solid. We have applied a range of novel simulation techniques to quantify this mobility at a molecular level. We have obtained several general laws for diffusion on interstellar ices that can help improve models that predict the molecular complexity in space. We have furthermore used our techniques as a computational microscopic to make structural rearrangements visible. We were the first to do this in a systematic study. This has triggered several new experiments and it has improved our understanding in this kind of phenomena.