Experimental evidence of the ferroelectric phase transition near the $\lambda -$point in liquid water

Abstract

We studied dielectric properties of nano-sized liquid water samples confined in polymerized silicates MCM-41 characterized by the porous sizes \sim 3-10nm. We report the direct measurements of the dielectric constant by the dielectric spectroscopy method at frequencies 25Hz-1MHz and demonstrate clear signatures of the second-order phase transition of ferroelectric nature at temperatures next to the λ- point in the bulk supercooled water. The presented results support the previously developed polar liquid phenomenology and hence establish its applicability to model actual phenomena in liquid water.

4 pages, single figure