Molecular-resolution imaging of ice crystallized from liquid water by cryogenic liquid-cell TEM

JS Du and S Banik and H Chan and B Fritsch and Y Xia and AS Karakoti and A Hutzler and SKRS Sankaranarayanan and JJ De Yoreo, NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, 16, 8342 (2025).

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-62451-0

Despite the ubiquity of ice, a molecular-resolution image of nanoscopic defects or microstructures in ice crystallized from liquid water has never been obtained. This is mainly due to the difficulties in preparing and preserving crystalline ice samples that can survive under high- resolution imaging conditions. Here, we report the stabilization and & Aring;-resolution electron imaging of ice Ih crystallized from liquid water by developing cryogenic liquid-cell transmission electron microscopy (CRYOLIC-TEM). We combine lattice mapping with molecular dynamics simulations to reveal that ice formation is highly tolerant to nanoscale defects such as misoriented subdomains and trapped gas bubbles, which are stabilized by molecular-scale structural motifs. Importantly, bubble surfaces adopt low-energy nanofacets and create negligible strain fields in the surrounding crystal. These bubbles can dynamically nucleate, grow, migrate, dissolve, and coalesce under electron irradiation and be monitored in situ near a steady state. This work improves our understanding of water crystallization behaviors at a molecular spatial resolution.

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