ScienceShot: Building the Smallest Possible Ice Crystal - ScienceNOW

ScienceShot: Building the Smallest Possible Ice Crystal - ScienceNOW: So to calculate the minimum number of molecules needed to make an ice lattice, a team of researchers shone infrared lasers on clusters of water molecules containing between 80 and 500 molecules. The team paid particular attention to how much energy the clusters absorbed from the lasers between the wavelengths of 2.63 micrometers and 3.57 micrometers—the range in which the oxygen-hydrogen bonds in water continually stretch and shrink. A particular peak of energy absorption occurred at a wavelength of about 3.125 micrometers—denoting the spectral characteristic of ice—and only appeared for clusters containing more than 275 water molecules...