Low-temperature triple-capillary cryostat for ice crystal growth studies

Abstract

Ice crystals come in a remarkable variety of shapes and sizes that affect a cloud’s radiative properties. To better understand the growth of these crystals, we built an improved capillary cryostat (CC2) designed to reduce potential instrumental artifacts that may have influenced earlier measurements. In CC2, a crystal forms at the end of one, two, or three well-separated, ultrafine capillaries to minimize both potential crystal–crystal and crystal–substrate interaction effects. The crystals can be initiated using several icenucleation modes. The cryostat has two vapor-source chambers on either side of the growth chamber, each allowing independent control of the growth chamber supersaturation. Crystals can be grown under a range of air pressures, and the supersaturation conditions in the growth chamber can be rapidly changed by switching between the two vapor-source chambers using a sliding valve. Crystals grow fixed to the capillary in a uniform, stagnant environment, and their orientation can be manipulated to measure the growth rate of each face. The high thermal mass of CC2 increases the stability and uniformity of the thermodynamic conditions surrounding the crystals. Here we describe the new instrument and present several sample observations.