Episode 2: Ice formation tolerant to nanoscale defects

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Sophia Chen interviews Jingshan Du from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory about his group’s high-resolution characterization of ice formation. Freezing liquid water between amorphous carbon membranes into single-crystalline ice enabled high-resolution transmission electron microscope imaging. The carbon membranes protected the ice from sublimation in the high vacuum. It was also a good electric conductor, which helped reduce charge buildup on the ice. Charge buildup can cause additional damage to the crystal. From the images they took, the researchers discovered how ice remains stable even with defects such as skewed crystal structure. This work was published in a recent issue of Nature Communications.