Revisiting the Cubicity of Stacking Disordered Ice: Ice Isd Formed in Mesopores

To examine the mechanism of nucleation and growth of stacking disordered ice (ice Isd) formed by freezing of supercooled water, we obtained cubicities (the fraction of cubic stacking sequences of ice crystallite) as a function of pore size and freezing temperature for ice Isd formed from freezing of water confined in various types of mesoporous silicas and carbons. Here, the most important role of mesopores is to control the freezing temperatures of confined water according to their shapes and sizes. Smallness of nanometer-sized water droplets confined to the mesopores and high interfacial thermal conductance of the silica-water interface lead to the suppression of the temperature rise during the freezing process. The cubicities were estimated based on the analysis of X-ray diffraction patterns of ices confined in the mesopores. The cubicities plotted against freezing temperature formed a universal curve irrespective of pore shapes. It is evident that the freezing temperature is the most important factor in controlling the cubicities of ice Isd. A plot of cubicity vs freezing temperature observed is almost identical to the results of molecular simulations in the literature. This gives strong support to the mechanism of nucleation and growth of ice Isd in supercooled water deduced from molecular simulations in the literature: layer-by-layer processes at the ice/liquid interface control the cubicity of freshly grown ice in supercooled water. The structure of ice Isd formed in supercooled water seems to be different from that of ice Isd formed in thin films of ice deposited under cryogenic conditions.