A new study published in Nature Physics has shed light on how ordinary ice can generate electricity, offering important insight into the origins of lightning. The research involved an international team, with significant theoretical contributions from Stony Brook University.
Anthony Mannino, a PhD student at Stony Brook University, led the theoretical work under the guidance of Professor Marivi Fernandez-Serra from the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS). The study found that ice demonstrates strong flexoelectricity, which is an electromechanical effect occurring when the material is bent.
The experimental aspect of the project was directed by Professor Gustau Catalan and Xin Wen at the Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ICN2) in Barcelona. Mannino used Stony Brook’s Seawulf supercomputing cluster to run large-scale quantum simulations. These simulations showed that at low temperatures, the surface of ice can display subtle ferroelectric ordering. This property amplifies flexoelectric effects and helps explain how collisions between ice particles and graupel in thunderclouds may result in large charge separations—key to lightning formation.
Alan Calder, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and deputy director of IACS at Stony Brook University, commented on the findings: “Helping to facilitate an innovative discovery like the origin of lightning is exciting, extremely rewarding, and very much in keeping with the fundamental role of computation in contemporary science. As this study shows, with the combination of clever investigators and advanced computing the sky, or lightning shooting through it at least, is literally the limit.”
The contribution from Stony Brook builds upon more than ten years of research by Fernandez-Serra’s group. Their earlier work had uncovered unusual nuclear quantum effects in ice as reported in Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 193003 (2012). The latest study continues this line by identifying a previously unknown electromechanical property within ice.
This collaboration highlights how computational simulations can complement experimental results. Mannino’s work using Seawulf connects atomic-level physics to macroscopic events such as lightning strikes.
Mannino holds dual affiliation with both Physics and Astronomy as well as IACS at Stony Brook University. He joined through an IACS Graduate Student Fellowship that provides a stipend comparable to National Science Foundation levels along with support for research expenses including publication fees, equipment purchases, and conference travel.
Professor Fernandez-Serra expressed pride in their collaborative approach: “We are very proud of this experiment–theory collaboration,” said Fernandez-Serra.”When our colleagues in Barcelona approached us with their remarkable results in search of theoretical support, we were initially skeptical that we could simulate such a complex system. But Anthony showed that the observed phase transition can be reproduced by combining simulations with a simple physical model—providing a clear explanation for experiments in a material as notoriously difficult to model as ice.”
Funding for SeaWulf came from multiple sources including grants from NSF (#1531492 and #2215987), Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR), as well as additional support from Stony Brook University.
