Dynamics of colloidal particles in ice


Peer Reviewed

Spannuth MJ, Mochrie SGJ, Peppin SSL, & Wettlaufer JS


The Journal of Chemical Physics 135, Issue 22, pages 224706, 2011, 10.1063/1.3665927.


We use x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) to probe the dynamics of colloidal particles in polycrystallineice. During freezing, the dendritic ice morphology and rejection of particles from the ice created regions of high particle density, where some of the colloids were forced into contact and formed disordered aggregates. The particles in these high density regions underwent ballistic motion, with a characteristic velocity that increased with temperature. This ballistic motion is coupled with both stretched and compressed exponential decays of the intensity autocorrelation function. We suggest that this behavior could result from icegrain boundary migration.

Keywords: Ice, Grain boundaries, Colloidal systems, X-ray scattering, Ballistics
Categories: Antarctic, Arctic, Natural Science