Dresden 2026 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik
O 5: Focus Session: Mineral-water interfaces I
O 5.3: Vortrag
Montag, 9. März 2026, 11:15–11:30, HSZ/0403
Nanoscopic insights on ice nucleation on microcline (001) — •Florian Schneider1, Rasmus Väinö Erik Nilsson2, Ralf Bechstein1, Bernhard Reischl2, Thomas Koop1, Angelika Kühnle1, and Tobias Dickbreder3 — 1Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany — 2University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland — 3University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Heterogeneous ice nucleation plays a crucial role in various environmental and technological processes. An in-depth understanding of the nucleation at the atomic scale can greatly enhance our capability to create materials with particular ice-nucleating properties and improve our climate models. In the atmosphere, a particularly active ice nucleating particle is dust from the feldspar mineral microcline [1]. However, why microcline outperforms other mineral dust particles in its ice-nucleating ability still remains a puzzle. Here, we present atomic force microscopy images of ice crystals growing from the vapor phase on the (001) surface of microcline at low temperature. In contrast to the prevailing view of active sites such as step edges or cracks being responsible for ice nucleation, we observe ice growth at random positions on the bare terrace. For the closely related feldspar sanidine, in contrast, ice nucleation is prevalent at step edges as expected. This comparison underscores the exceptional ice nucleating ability of microcline as it demonstrates ice nucleation even in the absence of surface defects and raises important questions regarding the different ice nucleation mechanisms on these two feldspar mineral surfaces.
[1] Harrison, A. D. et al., Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 2016.
Keywords: AFM; ice nucleation; feldspar; microcline; UHV