High pressure suppresses the laser-induced nucleation of supersaturated aqueous potassium chloride solutions

We report the suppression of nucleation in the nonphotochemical laser-induced nucleation of supersaturated aqueous potassium chloride solutions when the system pressure is above ambient pressure. The crystal yield at 51.7 bar is reduced to 5% of its value at 1 bar, and the crystal number dependence on pressure fits well to a semiempirical model based on the impurity-heating mechanism and the adiabatic compression of an ideal gas nanobubble. Our results complement recent findings by Barber and Alexander [] using high-speed imaging of bubbles preceding the observation of cesium chloride crystals. Together, these two studies provide compelling evidence for the impurity-heating mechanism.