Characterization of the thermodynamic stability and mechanical properties of Plastic Ice VII

Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations predicted the existence of a plastic phase of Ice VII more than a decade ago, however its experimental observation has remained elusive. Recently we obtained the first experimental identification of such phase by high pressure and high temperature quasi-elastic neutron scattering experiments performed at ILL. We here propose to perform an X-Ray Diffraction experiment on ID15B in order to assess some of the open questions regarding this new phase of Ice. We aim at understanding the order of the phase transition, determining the pressure-temperature stability range, and characterizing the mechanical properties of such phase.