X-Ray Diffraction Patterns of Ice

Abstract

DURING the last visit of the late Dr. E. W. Washburn to Toronto in the latter part of 1933, in an address on the properties of heavy water, he announced that water vapour, when condensed at very low temperatures, formed an amorphous rather than a crystalline solid. He reported that he did not know of any X-ray evidence to this effect. Mr. Fraser Oliver undertook to test this theory by taking X-ray photographs of the ice formed by condensation of water vapour on the outside of a copper rod. The copper rod could be maintained at any given temperature. The X-ray photographs were taken by the Hull-Debye-Scherrer method.