Low-density amorphous ice contains crystalline ice grains

Low-density amorphous ice (LDA) is one of the most common solid materials in the Universe and a key material for understanding the many famous anomalies of liquid water. Yet, despite its significance and its discovery nearly 90 years ago, the structure of LDA is debated. It is unclear if LDA is a glassy state representing a liquid or a heavily disordered crystal; indeed, two forms (LDA-I and LDA-II) have been discussed as amorphous and partially crystalline in the literature, respectively. Here, with two widely used water models, we show that the experimental structure factor of LDA is best reproduced computationally by a partially crystalline structure. Models for both LDA-I and LDA-II are highly similar, with differences only due to subtle differences in crystallinity and/or experimental error. Further support for this structural model of LDA comes from experiments: if LDA is partially crystalline, then its route to formation should result in different nanocrystallite cubicities, and thus give rise to different cubicities upon recrystallization. This memory effect of LDA's creation route is observed and it is incompatible with a fully amorphous material. The results present a unified computational and experimental view that LDA is not fully amorphous but instead a partially crystalline material. This impacts LDA's many roles in nature and potentially our understanding of liquid water. Furthermore, the “reidentification” of such an intensely studied material highlights that great care will be needed when classifying the nature of glassy materials going forward.