Negative thermal expansion in ice I polytypes
Abstract
The fundamental properties of ice have always attracted a lot of interest due to omnipresence of ice in many different natural contexts. Since cubic ice recently become experimentally accessible from a low-density gas hydrate precursor [1, 2], it has been possible to measure its density as a function of temperature in the whole thermodynamic range of metastability. We found strong analogies with respect to the other ice I polytype, i.e., hexagonal ice Ih [3], including the presence of a negative thermal expansion behavior at low temperature. Based on these results, a new enthalpy calculation quantifies the metastable nature of the cubic form and, consequently its inaccessibility from a "normal" ice Ih precursor.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2602.13053,
title = {Negative thermal expansion in ice I polytypes},
author = {Leonardo del Rosso and A. Dominic Fortes and Daniele Colognesi and Alberto Santonocito and Francesco Grazzi and Selene Berni and Milva Celli},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.13053},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
13 pages, 3 figures and 1 table