open access

https://hdl.handle.net/2115/50127

Quasi-liquid layers on ice crystal surfaces are made up of two different phases

英語

contrast microscopy

2012-01-24

The National Academy of Sciences

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

109(4)

1052-1055

Ice plays crucially important roles in various phenomena because of its abundance on Earth. However, revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers (QLLs), which governs the surface properties of ice crystals at temperatures near the melting point, remains an experimental challenge. Here we show that two types of QLL phases appear that exhibit different morphologies and dynamics. We directly visualized the two types of QLLs on ice crystal surfaces by advanced optical microscopy, which can visualize the individual 0.37-nm-thick elementary steps on ice crystal surfaces. We found that they had different stabilities and different interactions with ice crystal surfaces. The two immiscible QLL phases appeared heterogeneously, moved around, and coalesced dynamically on ice crystal surfaces. This picture of surface melting is quite different from the conventional picture in which one QLL phase appears uniformly on ice crystal surfaces.

学術雑誌論文

Accepted Manuscript

0027-8424

1091-6490