Journal Article
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 113, iss. 52, pp. 14921-14925, 2016
Authors
Yuntao Xu, Nikolay G. Petrik, R. Scott Smith, Bruce D. Kay, Greg A. Kimmel
Abstract
Significance
Water is ubiquitous, but its physical properties are anomalous compared with most liquids. Because the anomalies become enhanced upon cooling, understanding the behavior of deeply supercooled water is critical. Unfortunately, experiments below ∼236 K at ambient pressure are difficult due to uncontrolled crystallization. Using a pulsed-laser–heating technique, we have determined the crystalline-ice growth rate and liquid-water diffusivity for temperatures between 180 and 262 K in ultrahigh-vacuum conditions. The fact that both of these quantities are smoothly varying rules out the hypothesis that water’s properties have a singularity at or near 228 K. However, the results are consistent with a previous prediction for the diffusivity that assumed no thermodynamic transitions occur in the supercooled region.
