A DIY Recipe for Giant Hexagonal Ice Crystals

Episode 3 of my series on water ice! In this video I walk through my process for vapor-growing single crystals of ice. Starting with a small single-crystal substrate, a large crystal can be grown by depositing vapor. I use a vacuum chamber to evaporate/sublimate water at about -20 celcius, then a peltier cooler to deposit that water vapor back into a solid. The awesome thing is how crystallographic the samples look - lots beautiful hexagonal facets!

Extra special thanks to Steve Mould for a fantastic explanation of the thermoelectric effect: https://youtu.be/O6waiEeXDGo

Other videos in this series:

The Sound of Freezing, Explained! https://youtu.be/Wd_c0A8u3lw The Sound of Freezing (Bonus Footage) https://youtu.be/hpzutKRSukw What is polycrystalline water? https://youtu.be/g7ONBuVtz-w A DIY Recipe for Giant Hexagonal Ice Crystals https://youtu.be/L0SYxpVab6M Big Hexagons of Ice 2: Thermoelectric Boogaloo [TBD]

Check out the other social media for updates and ramblings: https://www.reddit.com/r/TryItAgain/ https://twitter.com/Alpha__Phoenix

Interesting articles for the extra-curious:

J.M. Adams, W. Lewis, The Production of Large Single Crystals of Ice, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 5 (1934) 400–402. doi:10.1063/1.1751759. T. Shichiri, Faceted ice crystals grown in water without air, J. Cryst. Growth. 187 (1998) 133–137. doi:10.1016/S0022-0248(97)00839-7. P. Bisson, H. Groenzin, I.L. Barnett, M.J. Shultz, High yield, single crystal ice via the Bridgman method, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 87 (2016) 034103. doi:10.1063/1.4944481. A. Cahoon, M. Maruyama, J.S. Wettlaufer, Growth-Melt Asymmetry in Crystals and Twelve-Sided Snowflakes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 (2006) 255502. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.255502. T. Gonda, The Growth of Small Ice Crystals in Gases of High and Low Pressures, C, J. Meteorol. Soc. Japan. Ser. II. 55 (1977) 142–146. doi:10.2151/jmsj1965.55.1_142. Y. Furukawa, S. Kohata, Temperature dependence of the growth form of negative crystal in an ice single crystal and evaporation kinetics for its surfaces, J. Cryst. Growth. 129 (1993) 571–581. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(93)90493-G. N.N. Khusnatdinov, V.F. Petrenko, Fast-growth technique for ice single crystals, J. Cryst. Growth. 163 (1996) 420–425. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(95)00980-9. D. v. d. S. Roos, Rapid Production of Single Crystals of Ice, J. Glaciol. 14 (1975) 325–328. doi:10.3189/s0022143000021808.

#Materials #Physics #Crystals

Music and images in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626

Space Walk by Silent Partner is licensed under a Creative Commons license

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