The structural characteristics of amorphous D2O ice by neutron diffraction

Neutron diffraction measurements have been made at several wavelengths for vapor-deposited D₂O ice at 10 K. The observed structure factor exhibits more oscillatory features than corresponding measurements on liquid D₂O water, indicating an ammorphous phase which has strong intermolecular spatial correlations. A detailed examination of the data shows that this is strongly influenced by hydrogen-bonding effects and that the local environment for each molecule is very similar to that in crystalline ice. The predictions of Boutron and Alben, based on a continuous random network model, are found to be in excellent agreement with the data.