Homogeneous nucleation of water: From vapor to supercooled droplets to ice

Abstract

We provide a brief overview of the extensive scientific research that has been conducted to determine the degree to which pure water can be supercooled and the rates at which the relevant phase transitions occur. Beginning with condensation, we present the homogeneous vapor - liquid nucleation rates measured over 20 orders of magnitude with a variety of experimental devices. Some of the experimental methods used to examine nucleation from the vapor phase can also be used to study freezing. In particular, using a supersonic nozzle (SSN) apparatus we have followed the condensation and subsequent freezing of pure water droplets by combining our normal pressure trace measurements (PTM) with both small angle Xray scattering (SAXS) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The time dependence of the fraction of frozen droplets yields the volume based nucleation rates for the freezing transition, 7.66⋅1023 < Jice/cm−3s−1 < 4.23⋅1024, confirming and extending those reported in the literature.