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A 2017 experiment produced nanosized ice crystals with a measured cubic fraction of 80%—a striking result, but not proof that perfectly cubic ice is impossible. Researchers rapidly froze supercooled water droplets and measured the crystals with X-ray scattering shortly afterward. The finding raised a question about how cubic ice forms and how close a sample can get to being entirely cubic.
What the experiment found
A US–Swedish team led by Barbara Wyslouzil of Ohio State University and Claudiu Stan of Stanford University reported making nanosized water droplets, accelerating them to supersonic speeds, and cooling them to −45 °C. The droplets froze within one millionth of a second. The researchers then used X-ray scattering to measure the resulting crystals 100 microseconds after freezing, reporting a sample with 80% cubic structure. Chemistry World reported the experiment on 13 July 2017.
What “80% cubic” means
The percentage describes the cubic fraction measured in the sample, sometimes called its cubicity. It does not mean that every crystal was cubic, nor that the team made pure cubic ice. The distinction matters: an 80% cubic sample contains a substantial non-cubic component.
Most ice is hexagonal, while cubic crystals have also been observed in high clouds. The experiment shows that rapid freezing under the described conditions can produce a sample with a high cubic fraction; it does not establish that 80% is the highest physically possible value.
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Is 80% the maximum?
The 2017 report said the result approached a value predicted by molecular-dynamics simulation and suggested that the prediction might represent a best-case limit. That is a qualified interpretation, not a demonstrated ceiling. The report’s question about whether 100% cubic crystals can exist remains unanswered by the reported experiment.
Chemistry World described 80% as a record at the time and compared it with earlier laboratory attempts that had reached about 70%. Those are historical figures from the 2017 report, not a verified current record or benchmark.
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Why cubic ice matters
Understanding how metastable cubic ice forms may help explain atmospheric processes, including ice in high clouds, and could inform climate models. The report presents that as potential relevance; it does not quantify an improvement to any climate model or show that this experiment changed a forecast.
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Related paper
The 2017 report cites A. Amaya et al., Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 8 (2017), page 3216, DOI 10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b01142. The reported result and experimental outline support the central finding, while the proposed theoretical limit should be treated as unresolved.
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