Christina Maria Tonauer finds novel evidence for the first-order nature of the transition between high-density amorphous ice (HDA) and low-density amorphous ice (LDA), supporting water’s liquid-liquid transition scenarios. Pressure-dependent crystallisation experiments of differently prepared expanded high-density amorphous ice samples (eHDA) and subsequent powder x-ray diffraction experiments disclose nucleation of LDA domains in bulk HDA, a typical feature of a first-order transition. The comparison of pressure-dependent crystallisation temperatures of eHDA samples with LDA nuclei and bulk LDA allows the estimation of the Laplace pressure and the size of a LDA nucleus.

Christina Maria Tonauer is currently a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. The focus of her scientific interests is on the physico-chemical characteristics and the reactivity of crystalline and amorphous water ices.