Overview
- Experiments at European XFEL and SLAC’s LCLS produced superionic water and recorded its atomic arrangement within trillionths of a second.
- Measurements show a mixed oxygen lattice combining face‑centered cubic regions with hexagonal close‑packed layers, creating pervasive stacking faults.
- The phase features mobile hydrogen ions moving through a fixed oxygen framework, yielding high electrical conductivity relevant to planetary magnetism.
- Authors note it remains unclear whether the observed disorder is intrinsic to the phase or introduced by shock compression, prompting follow‑up tests.
- Findings, published in Nature Communications by a team of more than 60 researchers, provide constraints for models of Uranus, Neptune and similar exoplanets.