Liquid-to-crystal nucleation: Automated lag-time apparatus to study supercooled liquids

The statistics of liquid-to-crystal nucleation are studied using an automated lag-time apparatus. A single 500 muL sample of distilled water is repeatedly supercooled to a fixed temperature below its equilibrium freezing temperature, held until freezing occurred, and then thawed. Our raw data is then a set of approximately 300 lag-times for each of three set supercooling temperatures. In each case, a small insoluble AgI crystal was added to ensure heterogeneous nucleation and average nucleation temperatures around DeltaT=8 K. The distribution of lag-times is analyzed, and shown to be well approximated by a single exponential decay, with average lag-times in the range of 1000-3000 seconds. This average lag-time decreases markedly at deeper levels of supercooling, and for the present data, this decrease is fit equally well by exponential, power law decay, and classical nucleation functional forms. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.