Researchers at European XFEL in Schenefeld near Hamburg have taken a closer look at the formation of the first crystallisation of nuclei in supercooled liquids. They found: The formation starts much later than previously assumed. The findings could help to better understand the creation of ice in clouds in the future and to describe some processes inside the Earth more precisely.
Every child knows that water freezes into ice when it gets icy cold. For water, this normally happens below zero degrees Celsius, the melting temperature of water. This is a fixed point on the Celsius temperature scale that we use.
However, the transition from the liquid to the solid phase is a very complex process and is difficult to study experimentally at the atomic level. One reason for this is that crystals are formed randomly: You don’t know exactly when and where it will happen. Furthermore, a liquid can remain in a metastable state for a long time: It remains liquid even though it should actually freeze and become solid. This makes it extraordinarily difficult to pinpoint the right moment for a crystal to form and watch its growth.
About European XFEL
The European XFEL is a 3.4 km long research facility extending from Hamburg to the neighbouring town of Schenefeld in the German Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein. With its repetition rate of 27,000 pulses per second and a peak brilliance a billion times higher than that of the best synchrotron X-ray radiation sources, the European XFEL enables the investigation of scientific problems in a variety of disciplines, including among many others: Structural Biology, Chemistry, Planetary Science, the study of matter under extreme conditions.
Researchers at European XFEL in Schenefeld near Hamburg have taken a closer look at the formation of the first crystallisation of nuclei in supercooled liquids. They found: The formation starts much later than previously assumed. The findings could help to better understand the creation of ice in clouds in the future and to describe some processes inside the […]
