Unveiling nanoscale fluctuation dynamics during liquid-liquid transitions

The existence of a liquid-liquid transition (LLT) has attracted considerable attention because of its counterintuitive nature and its fundamental importance for understanding the liquid state. It is hypothesized that the LLT takes place in supercooled water in an experimentally inaccessible region (so-called no-man’s land) because of the rapid crystallization. Here, we will explore the LLT by suppressing crystallization with the use of cryoprotected aqueous solutions. We aim to go beyond LLT structural kinetics studied previously and explore the dynamic properties with X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy (XPCS). Varying the concentration and composition of the solutions allows us to explore different parts of the state diagram. Our experiment will provide a new insight into the critical fluctuations and unlock new pathways for accessing LLT dynamics hidden by crystallization for a broad range of liquids, including biological solutions.