The Contribution of Pyroelectricity of AgI Crystals to Ice Nucleation

The pyroelectricity of AgI crystals strongly affects the icing temperature of super‐cooled water, as disentangled from that of epitaxy. This deduction was achieved by the design of polar crystalline ceramic pellets of AgI, with experimentally determined sense of polarity. These pellets are suitable for measuring both their pyroelectric properties as well as the icing temperature of super‐cooled water, separately on each of the expressed Ag+ and I− hemihedral surfaces. The positive pyroelectric charge at the silver‐enriched side elevates the icing temperature, whereas the negative charge at the iodide side decreases that temperature. Moreover, the effect of pyroelectric charge remains dominant despite the presence of contaminants on both the silver and the iodide‐enriched surfaces. Consequently an electrochemical process for ice nucleation is suggested, which might be of relevance for understanding the role played by electric charges in heterogeneous icing processes in general. The pyroelectric effect of the polar silver iodide, used for glaciogenic cloud seeding, affects the freezing temperature, Tf, along with the epitaxial match between ice and the crystal. The positive pyroelectric charge at the Ag+‐enriched side elevates, while the negative pyroelectric charge at the I−‐enriched side reduces the freezing temperature of super‐cooled water.