ARCHER2 Calendar January 2025

Icequakes: vibrating supercooled water in the nanopore

Pengxu Chen, School of Engineering, The University of Edinburgh

Ice nucleation within supercooled liquid is the process where the first few ice crystals, comprising a few molecules, begin to form. The accompanying image vividly illustrates ice (represented by white molecules) nucleating from supercooled water (depicted by translucent blue molecules) confined within a nanopore with a vibrating wall, a system of interest to confined nanopores. My results reveal that negative pressure, generated as the vibrating surface stretches the supercooled water, serves as a catalyst for ice nucleation by encouraging the formation of larger ice-like clusters. Once sufficient large clusters form and accumulate, the critical threshold is reached, and an ice front forms that rapidly envelopes the entire domain. This work was performed using molecular dynamics simulations in LAMMPS on ARCHER2.

This image was published on the January page of the ARCHER2 2025 printed calendar.