2013 Volume 82 Issue 2 Pages 150-153
Ice plays a significantly important role in various phenomena because of its abundance on earth. However, it has been an experimental challenge to reveal the dynamic behaviors of quasi-liquid layers (QLLs), which dominate the surface properties of ice crystals at temperatures near the melting point. Hence, we tried to visualize the surface melting processes directly by advanced optical microscopy, which can visualize the individual 0.37-nm-thick elementary steps on ice crystal surfaces. We found that two types of QLL phases appear that exhibit different morphologies and dynamics. The two immiscible QLL phases emerged heterogeneously, moved around, and coalesced dynamically on ice crystal surfaces. This picture is quite different from the conventional understanding of surface melting.
