Supercooling is the process of chilling a liquid below its freezing point, without it becoming solid.

A liquid below its freezing point will crystallize in the presence of a seed crystal or nucleus around which a crystal structure can form.

However, lacking any such nucleus, the liquid phase can be maintained all the way down to the temperature at which crystal homogeneous nucleation occurs.

The homogeneous nucleation can occur above the glass transition where the system is an amorphous - that is, non-crystalline-solid..

For more information about the topic Supercooling, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:

Boiling — Boiling is the rapid vaporization of a liquid, which typically occurs when a liquid is heated to a temperature such that its vapor pressure is above ...  > read more

Superheating — In physics, superheating (sometimes referred to as boiling retardation, boiling delay, or defervescence) is the phenomenon in which a liquid is ...  > read more

Liquid — A liquid is one of the three ordinary phases of matter. It is a fluid whose shape is usually determined by the container it fills. Its volume is ...  > read more

List of phases of matter — This is a list of the different phases of matter including the more exotic ones. Generally phases of matter are distinguished by the pressure and ...  > read more

Related Stories

Nanocrystals Embedded In Glass: They're Hotter Before They Melt And Colder Before They Freeze (October 11, 2006) — Nanocrystals of germanium embedded in silica glass don't melt until the temperature rises almost 200 degrees Kelvin above the melting temperature of germanium in bulk. Even more surprising, these ...  > read more

New Type Of Liquid Crystal Identified; Holds Promise Of Faster, Lower Priced Liquid Crystal Displays (June 15, 2004) — A new type of liquid crystal - recently discovered by a research team that includes a Kent State University professor - holds the promise of faster liquid crystal displays at a lower ...  > read more

New Clue In The Mystery Of Glassy Water (February 5, 2008) — Water has some amazing properties. A less commonly known distinction of water, but one of great interest to physical chemists, is its odd behavior at its transition to the glassy phase. Chemists have ...  > read more

Colluding With Colloids: Scientists Make Liquid Crystal Discovery (December 17, 2006) — Findings of Kent State University scientists indicate that manipulating the size of colloids, micron-sized or nanometer-sized particles, can produce huge changes in the material properties of liquid ...  > read more

NASA Experiments Validate 50-year-old Hypothesis; Research Conducted In NASA Electrostatic Levitator (July 2, 2003) — NASA-funded researchers recently obtained the first complete proof of a 50-year-old hypothesis explaining how liquid metals resist turning into ...  > read more

Search ScienceDaily

Anti-Freeze For Your Plants