A team of international researchers has revealed that ordinary snow is a flexoelectric material. Flexoelectric materials are materials that generate electricity when deformed.

The findings, by researchers at ICN2, Xi’an Jiaotong University (Xi’an) and Stony Brook University (New York), could play a key role in future technological devices and help us understand natural phenomena such as lightning in storms.

The research advances our understanding of the electromechanical properties of snow.

Dr. Shin Wen, one of the study’s lead researchers and a member of the ICN2 Oxide Nanophysics Group, said the scientists found that snow generates an electric charge at any temperature as a result of mechanical stress.

The scientists also identified a thin ‘ferroelectric’ layer on the surface of the snow at temperatures as low as minus 113 degrees Celsius.