Ice Nucleation (IMAGE)
Caption
Using a computer model to explore how water molecules connect and nucleate into ice crystals, the researchers found that two types of ice compete for dominance during nucleation: cubic ice (blue) which is less stable, and hexagonal ice (red), which is stable and forms the majority of ice on Earth. Nucleation occurs when water molecules come together to form blobs (pictured above), which grow over time (left to right). Eventually hexagonal ice wins out (not shown). The researchers found that adding new cubic features onto an existing crystalline blob gives rise to nuclei that are more spherical, and hence more stable. In contrast, adding hexagonal features tends to give rise to chains of hexagonal cages that make the nucleus less spherical, and hence less stable.
Credit
Images courtesy of Amir Haji-Akbari, Princeton University.
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Images courtesy of Amir Haji-Akbari, Princeton University.
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