Sentences with word «superionic»

Scientists have predicted a new phase of superionic ice, a special form of ice that could exist on Uranus and Neptune, in a theoretical study performed by a team of researchers at Princeton University.

By using theoretical simulations, the researchers were able to model states of superionic ice that would be difficult to study experimentally.

Experimental evidence for superionic water ice using shock compression.

While indirect signatures were observed, no research group has been able to identify experimental evidence for superionic water ice — until now.

Hydrogen ions in superionic water ice can carry electrical charge, making it good at conducting electricity and generating magnetic fields.

Scientists created a new form of water — called superionic ice — that acts like a weird cross between a solid and a liquid, The New York Times reports.

In a paper published today in Nature Physics, a research team from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Rochester provides experimental evidence for superionic conduction in water ice at planetary interior conditions, verifying the 30 - year - old prediction.

In known superionic materials, generally the conductivity can change either abruptly (type I) or gradually (type II), but the type of change will be specific to the material.

Signs of the strange substance, known as superionic ice, showed up in a laser experiment.

As a foundational study, the research team investigated superionic ice treating the ions as if they were classical particles, but in future studies they plan to take quantum effects into account to further understand the properties of the material.

One of the most intriguing properties of water is that it may become superionic when heated to several thousand degrees at high pressure, similar to the conditions inside giant planets like Uranus and Neptune.

More specifically, his team is seeking to improve the energy density and safety of batteries by investigating the use of superionic hydrides as solid - state electrolytes — work being done in conjunction with Hitachi.

«Scientists predict cool new phase of superionic ice.»

Hints of the special phase, called superionic ice, appeared in water ice exposed to high pressures and temperatures, researchers report February 5 in Nature Physics.

The great significance of this «superionic conduction» has only recently been appreciated for use in batteries2.

«Our experiments have verified the two main predictions for superionic ice: very high protonic / ionic conductivity within the solid and high melting point,» said lead author Marius Millot, a physicist at LLNL.

Visualization of molecular dynamics simulations showing the fast diffusion of hydrogen ions (pink trajectories) within the solid lattice of oxygen in superionic ice.

David Shiga reports on simulations that suggest the extreme conditions within Uranus and Neptune could produce a layer of superionic water around their cores (4 September, p 15).

Scientists have proposed that heat emanating outward from the planet's core may pass through an inner layer of superionic ice, and through convection, create vortices on the outer layer of ionic water that give rise to local magnetic fields.

That caused pressures to spike to more than a million times those of Earth's atmosphere and temperatures to rise to thousands of degrees, conditions scientists had predicted may lead to the formation of superionic ice.

However, superionic ice breaks from convention, as the conductivity changes abruptly with temperature across the crystal to close - packed superionic transition and continuously at the crystal to P21 / c - SI transition.

Unlike water or regular ice, in superionic ice the water molecules dissociate into charged atoms called ions, with the oxygen ions locked in a solid lattice, while the hydrogen ions move like the molecules in a liquid.

«These unique properties could essentially be used as signatures of superionic ice,» said Torquato, «so now that you know what to look for, you have a better chance of finding it.»

Published on Aug. 28 in Nature Communications, the research revealed an entirely new type of superionic ice that they call the P21 / c - SI phase, which occurs at pressures even higher than in the interior of giant ice planets of our solar system.

The effects of this ionic conductivity could be observed by planetary scientists in search of superionic ice.

Unlike Earth, which has two magnetic poles (north and south), ice giants can have many local magnetic poles, which leading theories suggest may be due to superionic ice and ionic water in the mantle of these planets.

«Superionic ice is this in - between state of matter that we can't really relate to anything we know of — that's why it's interesting,» Salvatore Torquato, a Professor of Chemistry who jointly led the work with Roberto Car, the Ralph W.»31 Dornte Professor in Chemistry.

Two other phases of superionic ice thought to exist on the planets are body centered cubic superionic ice (BCC - SI) and, close - packed superionic ice (CP - SI).

The researchers calculated the ionic conductivity of each phase of superionic ice and found unusual behavior at the transition where the low temperature crystal, in which both oxygen and hydrogen ions are locked together, transforms into superionic ice.

Although we normally think of ice as being cold, at high pressures, superionic ice can form even when heated.

These extremes may reveal two phases of water not commonly found on Earth: plasma, a high - energy state in the sun where the electrons aren't tied to any atom in particular and move about freely; and the superionic phase, an elusive state where the oxygen atoms form a solid crystal lattice and the hydrogen ions zip around and through it.

Although the superionic state was first predicted 30 years ago, «up until now we didn't really know whether this was something that was real.»

For now, the superionic state of water seems likelier, but still on thin ice.

That jump, the researchers say, is evidence that superionic ice melted at that point.

Whereas metals conduct electricity via the motion of electrons, in superionic ice, the flowing hydrogen ions transmit electricity.

The physicists didn't measure the pressure at which the superionic phase first formed.

The electrical conductivity of the material provided another hint of superionic ice: The level of conductivity was consistent with expectations for that phase of matter.

But superionic ice is made up of ions, which are atoms with a positive or negative electric charge.

It's called superionic ice.

David Shiga reports on simulations that suggest the extreme conditions within Uranus and Neptune could produce a layer of superionic...

It is called superionic ice.

«Because we pre-compressed the water, there is less shock - heating than if we shock - compressed ambient liquid water, allowing us to access much colder states at high pressure than in previous shock compression studies, so that we could reach the predicted stability domain of superionic ice,» Millot said.

«Our work provides experimental evidence for superionic ice and shows that these predictions were not due to artifacts in the simulations, but actually captured the extraordinary behavior of water at those conditions.

Now, the experimental discovery of superionic ice should give more strength to a new picture for these objects with a relatively thin layer of fluid and a large «mantle» of superionic ice.

This would be very exciting because theoretical simulations struggle to predict the actual structure of superionic water ice.»

«First experimental evidence for superionic ice.»

«X-ray diffraction is now routinely performed in laser - shock experiments at Omega and it will allow to determine experimentally the crystalline structure of superionic water.

This work also has important implications for planetary science because Uranus and Neptune might contain vast amount of superionic water ice.