When it comes to the topic of microfibers, researchers no longer need to "break the ice." Thanks to the new discovery of nanomaterials, they can now bend it.

Guo Xin, an optical scientist at Zhejiang University in China and one of the authors of a study published in the journal Science this summer, said: "Our team has been studying silica microfibers for 20 years." Now, her team He has become the first person to grow ultra-fine fibers with soft ice, which can be bent backwards without breaking.

As we all know, ice is a fragile substance, mainly due to defects in its crystal structure. But scientists still don't fully understand what happens at the molecular level when ice becomes water, and vice versa. The optical properties of the new superelastic ice microfibers can reveal new insights.

Guo said the researchers made microfibers by cooling a tungsten needle (shrinked to the thickness of a single atom, the sharpest object ever made) in a special chamber to about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. This is colder than any other experiment of this nature before. The team then used an electric field to draw water vapor into the needle tip. As the steam freezes there, it forms ultra-fine fibers about 5 microns in diameter and 1 mm in length.

"It's very thin and very short," said Tong Limin, an optical scientist at Zhejiang University and a co-author of the study. Guo added that the fibers are formed from single crystal ice. "We made [a] high-quality ice microfibers with a uniform structure," she said.

The researchers then further reduced the temperature to between -94 degrees Fahrenheit and -238 degrees Fahrenheit. When they tried to bend it, they found that their experiment worked. The resulting fiber can be bent to a maximum strain of 10.9%-much more than ordinary ice, and close to the theoretical maximum elasticity of 15% of ice, although no one has reached this level. It will also bounce back to its original form.

"It's like some magic," Tong said of his initial attempts to bend the material. "Usually we don't have perfect ice crystals. Now we have a superfine fiber with very uniform properties."

Although "cool" in itself, bendable ice is also useful. Researchers send light through very clear ice microfibers and found that it is as effective as silica fibers that are commonly used to transmit information through light. Guo and Tong believe that these fibers may also be used to detect viruses or other microorganisms. By placing tiny organisms on microfibers and directing light through them, we can learn more about the concentration, density, or type of microorganisms that may be present.

In the future, the team will also work on building sensors compatible with curved ice. Of course, this fiber will melt at a temperature of about 14 degrees Fahrenheit—which means it may not be useful in many situations. "This is the temperature that is often used in the laboratory," Tong said. "The same is true in certain types of ice cream." But because of the inherent low temperature, researchers in polar regions or space can use them. 

Perhaps most importantly, the light irradiated through these frozen fibers can help researchers study what happens when ice changes phase. Because only bending ultrafine fibers can cause a phase change, doing so can reveal more about how ice crystals are formed, why they are formed in this way, and which molecules are involved.

Currently, the next step is to determine whether longer ice microfibers can be made. "As scientists, we still have a lot of mysteries, we still don't know," Tong said.

Keep reading for as low as $1.99!

Color puzzle: Scientists look for the darkest black

Sign up for our weekly scientific updates.

Subscribe to Discover Magazine to save up to 70% of the cover price.