Dielectric study of the structure of hyperquenched glassy water and its crystallized forms

Abstract

The dielectric permittivity and loss tangent of hyperquenched glassy water (HGW) have been measured for fixed frequencies of 1 and 10 kHz from 80 K to its crystallization temperature and corresponding measurements have been made of the crystallized forms. The effect of thermal cycling has been investigated. Except for a shoulder at T<Tg for 10 kHz measurement, there are no features in the loss tangent until the beginning of crystallization when the increase in tan δ of the water above Tg is dominated by the decrease on the formation of cubic ice and a peak appears. The dielectric loss of HGW at 80 K is ≊5 times more than that of cubic ice formed on crystallization by heating to 195 K and 2.8 times higher at Tg. The dielectric loss of the cubic ice formed on crystallization tends towards a plateau value prior to rapidly increasing with increasing temperature, which is evidence for a low temperature relaxation which vanishes on conversion to hexagonal ice. The plateaulike region indicates the presence of topologically disordered structure of intergranular water. The loss tangent lacks any feature that can be attributed to the presence of ‘‘dangling’’ OH groups. A comparison of these results with those of in vacuo sintered vapor-deposited amorphous solid water (ASW) [Johari et al., J. Chem. Phys. 95, 2955 (1991)] shows that the presence of ≊5% cubic ice in HGW causes its crystallization to occur more rapidly, leading to larger grains or less intergranular space and a lower value of dielectric loss of the cubic ice formed by heating it, than that formed by heating ASW. Implications of these results for the heat evolved in the phase transformation process have been discussed.