Glassy Nuclei in Amorphous Ice

Christina Maria Tonauer finds novel evidence for the first-order nature of the transition between high-density amorphous ice (HDA) and low-density amorphous ice (LDA), supporting water's liquid-liquid transition scenarios. Pressure-dependent crystallisation experiments of differently prepared expanded high-density amorphous ice samples (eHDA) and subsequent powder x-ray diffraction experiments disclose nucleation of LDA domains in bulk HDA, a typical feature of a first-order transition. The comparison of pressure-dependent crystallisation temperatures of eHDA samples with LDA nuclei and bulk LDA allows the estimation of the Laplace pressure and the size of a LDA nucleus.

Publication in the field of natural sciences Reviews advances in water science New experimental findings about the nature of water

Autorentext
Christina Maria Tonauer is currently a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. The focus of her scientific interests is on the physico-chemical characteristics and the reactivity of crystalline and amorphous water ices.

Inhalt
Water's Polyamorphism.- High-Pressure in situ Volumetry and Powder X-Ray Diffraction Studies of Amorphous Ices.- Nucleation of Glassy Nuclei in High-Density Amorphous Ice.- Phase Transitions in Nanosized Amorphous Nuclei.