{"id":3315,"date":"2021-11-30T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-30T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=3315"},"modified":"2021-11-17T06:37:46","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T06:37:46","slug":"superionic-ice-a-new-state-of-matter-and-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/superionic-ice-a-new-state-of-matter-and-water\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSuperionic Ice\u201d: A New State of Matter (And Water)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Early schooling has taught us of the four fundamental states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. Further education has introduced probably two or more states to that list, which may include pretty complicated names, like Bose-Einstein condensates<\/em>. All in all, there\u2019s a couple of things in that list that are far more complicated to explain compared to the first four ones, but there are definitely a lot more out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thing is, identifying these states are more than just adding more things for kids to memorize or for adults to teach them; exploring the limits of matter allow scientists to peer into the inner workings of the universe, and give us glimpses into worlds far away from our own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The four fundamental states of matter, clockwise from upper left: solid ice, liquid water, plasma in electric arcs, and gas in the atmosphere. (Wikimedia Commons, 2013) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

That last statement certainly appears to be the case with these new findings published in the journal Nature Physics<\/em>, as a team of scientists just compressed water to extreme pressures, then blasted it to very high temperatures with focused lasers, creating a new state of matter known as superionic<\/em> ice<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The findings, which were produced by a collaboration working with the US-based Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), comes as the latest in a string of news about the frontier of physics; it now joins the ranks of the \u201choneycomb\u201d crystal made entirely out of electrons<\/a>, as well as adding another point to the long list of water\u2019s strange properties, which include freezing on graphene by \u201cadding\u201d heat instead of taking it away<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Said co-author, University of Chicago research professor, and beamline scientist at ANL\u2019s Advanced Photon Source (APS) Vitali Prakapenka in an ANL news release: \u201cIt was a surprise\u2014everyone thought this phase wouldn\u2019t appear until you are at much higher pressures than where we first [found] it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These intrepid scientists successfully \u201cmapped out\u201d the properties of this new phase of matter a few years after it was first glimpsed for a short while in a study published in the journal Nature<\/em> just a few years prior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
In this artist\u2019s impression of the phenomenon that created the new superionic ice, the water molecules were squeezed together at very high pressures with diamond, then heated to high temperatures using lasers; the resulting state of matter was \u201cunstable.\u201d (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Millot\/Coppari\/Hamel\/Krauss, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

To get to this landmark achievement, the team squeezed a droplet of water between two diamonds, known as the hardest substance on Earth; the resulting pressure between the diamonds was about 3.5 million times the normal atmospheric pressure of Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterwards, the team took advantage of the capabilities of the APS\u2019s X-ray output, and shot it through the diamond to heat the water droplet inside it after heating it to multiple times the temperature of the Sun\u2019s surface using a laser. In doing so, the X-rays \u201cscattered\u201d after colliding with the atoms inside the droplet, which gave clues to the arrangement of the atoms locked inside the pressed diamonds. The entire process lasted a mere 20 nanoseconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pattern produced by the X-rays gave the ANL scientists the data that led them to this remarkable find, which Prakapenka described as \u201ca new state of matter\u2014so it basically acts as a new material, and it may be different from what we thought.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Neptune, being the farthest planet from the Sun, is a very cold world; given its mass compared to Earth, scientists think that any ice we find in or near its core will most likely be in its \u201csuperionic\u201d form. (NASA\/JPL, 1989) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Prakapenka describes the new \u201csuperionic<\/em>\u201d ice, which they consider a new state of matter, in a news release from ANL: \u201cImagine a cube, a lattice with oxygen atoms at the corners connected by hydrogen. When it transforms into this new superionic phase, the lattice expands, allowing the hydrogen atoms to migrate around while the oxygen atoms remain steady in their positions. It\u2019s kind of like a solid oxygen lattice sitting in an ocean of floating hydrogen atoms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scientists also expect the material to appear \u201cdark,\u201d since it interacts differently with light compared to other forms of ice. Given its penchant for existing only at extremely high pressures and temperatures, Prakapenka and team expect it to be the predominant form of ice on cold, massive planets like our Solar System\u2019s own Uranus and Neptune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the team also expects this unique form of ice to play a role in the magnetic field of whatever planet it calls home, which makes understanding this new state of matter crucial in understanding exoplanets. In the words of Prakapenka himself: \u201c\u200b\u201cThis should stimulate a lot more studies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n