Stony Brook Simulations Help Explain Lightning’s Mysterious Origins
A recent study in Nature Physics reveals how ordinary ice can generate electricity, providing crucial insight into the origins of lightning. It was discovered that ice exhibits strong flexoelectricity—an electromechanical effect that occurs when the material is bent.
At Stony Brook University, PhD student Anthony Mannino, working under the supervision of Professor Marivi Fernandez-Serra in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and the Core Faculty at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS), spearheaded the theoretical side of the project.
The international collaboration was led experimentally by Professor Gustau Catalan and Dr. Xin Wen at the Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ICN2) in Barcelona.
Using the Seawulf supercomputing cluster, Mannino performed large-scale quantum simulations that revealed how the surface of ice can undergo subtle ferroelectric ordering at low temperatures. This ordering amplifies the flexoelectric effect and explains how collisions between ice particles and graupel in thunderclouds can generate the massive charge separations that lead to lightning.
“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,” said Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Deputy Director of the Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS) Alan Calder. “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.”