Hiroki
khsacc.bsky.social
Hiroki
@khsacc.bsky.social
Crystallography, Ice, High-Pressure. Now at IMPMC Paris
arxiv.org/abs/2507.14415

My most recent work on high-pressure ice. I was surprised by my own data when I finally solved the Z = 304 structure from powder diffraction . Thank you for comments so far and I’m always open for discussion

New metastable ice phases via supercooled water | arXiv preprint
New metastable ice phases via supercooled water
Water exhibits rich polymorphism, where more than 20 crystalline phases have been experimentally reported. Five of them are metastable and form at low temperatures by either heating amorphous ice or degassing clathrate hydrates. However, such metastable phases rarely crystallise directly from liquid water, making it challenging to study metastable phase relations at relatively high temperatures. Here, we report that high-pressure metastable phases of ice, including two unknown phases named ices XXI and XXII, crystallise directly from liquid water in a deeply supercooled region around the homogeneous nucleation temperature. The key is to use emulsified water to stabilise supercooled water in laboratory timescales. Ices XXI and XXII are obtained by isothermal compression of emulsified water at 295 K and 250 K, respectively. Our powder x-ray and neutron diffraction analyses combined with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations revealed the surprisingly complex structures of these new phases with Z = 152 (ice XXI) and 304 (ice XXII). Ice XXI is topologically identical to 'ice T2' previously predicted by MD simulations, and our experimental structural model can be used as a benchmark for its structures in simulations, which depend on the force fields. On cooling, ice XXI transforms into an orientationally ordered counterpart named ice XXIII. Our results revealed the "hidden" structural complexity of water underlying the phase diagram, as implied by previous computational works. Further efforts at unveiling such metastable phase relations will bridge the large gaps between computational and experimental phase diagrams of water.
arxiv.org
September 3, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Performing a (bit late) phase transition to Bluesky
September 3, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Thank you very much for a wonderful #ECM35 conference, starting from kind welcome by the diffuse scattering workshop, towards fruitful discussion with high pressure people especially on the last day.
August 29, 2025 at 6:59 PM