X-ray diffraction of metastable structures from supercooled liquid hydrogen

We report time resolved observations of the crystallization from liquid hydrogen, supercooled to temperatures below the melting point, using 11.2 keV X-ray diffraction from the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). Changes to the metastable solid and liquid structure factors have been dynamically measured. This allows for a direct determination of the lowest energy crystal polymorphs, the stacking probabilities, as well as the liquid and solid densities and temperatures. Such measurements provide experimental evidence of an Arrhenius-like growth kinetics along the stacking direction during supercooling.