New metastable form of ice and its role in the homogeneous crystallization of water
John Russo, Flavio Romano & Hajime Tanaka
Published online: 18 May 2014 | doi:10.1038/nmat3977
At sufficiently low temperature, liquid water crystallizes through the direct nucleation of ices with cubic or hexagonal symmetry. A simulation study now shows that the direct nucleation of water into atomic stackings of cubic and hexagonal ices occurs through a metastable precursor phase with tetragonal symmetry, and that this scenario provides an explanation for the unusual pressure dependence of water’s homogeneous crystal nucleation temperature.
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