Freezing of Supercooling Water between Parallel Plates

Abstract

We studied single ice crystal growth in supercooling water between a pair of two parallel glass plates. The gap between the plates was 50 μm. The plates were applied by vapor deposition of SiO or fluorine resin. Because vapor-deposited film was very thin, the thermal properties of the films had little effect on the growth. It was observed that the shape of the ice crystal changed with the supercooling degree. To investigate the effect of the crystal orientation to plates on the growth, the basal planes of seed crystal were set parallel or perpendicular to the plates. We measured growth velocity and tip radius of tip of the ice crystal. In parallel condition, there were two shape types of crystals, which were cell crystal at lower supercooling and dendrite crystal at higher supercooling. In perpendicular condition, the crystal observed had wedge shape and higher growth velocity. Additionally, it was found that growth velocity and shape depends on the surface properties of the wall and the crystal orientation to the wall.