Experimental observation of the liquid-liquid transition in bulk supercooled water under pressure

Published November 20, 2020 | Version v1

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1. Pohang University of Science and Technology
2. Stockholm University
3. Brooklyn College of the City University of New York
4. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Deutsches Elektronen- Synchrotron (DESY)
5. Pohang Accelerator Laboratory
6. St. Francis Xavier University

We prepared bulk samples of supercooled liquid water under pressure by isochoric heating of highdensity

amorphous ice to temperatures of 205 ± 10 kelvin, using an infrared femtosecond laser. Because

the sample density is preserved during the ultrafast heating, we could estimate an initial internal

pressure of 2.5 to 3.5 kilobar in the high-density liquid phase. After heating, the sample expanded

rapidly, and we captured the resulting decompression process with femtosecond x-ray laser pulses at

different pump-probe delay times. A discontinuous structural change occurred in which low-density

liquid domains appeared and grew on time scales between 20 nanoseconds to 3 microseconds, whereas

crystallization occurs on time scales of 3 to 50 microseconds. The dynamics of the two processes

being separated by more than one order of magnitude provides support for a liquid-liquid transition

in bulk supercooled water.

Notes

Supplementary information here: science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6519/978/suppl/DC1

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