Water Dictates Structural Varieties of Liquid and Glassy Ammonia Dihydrate

Ammonia/water mixtures are key constituents of icy planetary interiors, yet their amorphous phases, structures, and formation pathways remain completely unexplored. Neutron diffraction measurements, interpreted using empirical potential structure refinement (EPSR), have been used to characterize the local structure of liquid and two distinct amorphous ammonia dihydrate phases. We find that flash-freezing at ambient pressure produces an amorphous solid that is structurally distinct from the liquid, with stronger water-water coordination, enhanced five-membered hydrogen-bonded rings, and a more ordered and less homogeneous local environment. The O-O pair distribution function resembles expanded high-density amorphous ice, while the overall coordination remains closer to that of low-density amorphous ice with ammonia being seen to stabilize local 4-fold hydrogen bonding while enabling denser medium-range packing. A second amorphous formation pathway emerges when flash-freezing occurs alongside compression to 0.3 GPa, producing a second distinct amorphous solid to flash-freeze at ambient pressure. Increasing pressure leads to a pressure-induced structural change indicated by the collapse of all of the second coordination shells (O-O, O-N, and N-N), leading to much denser packing and a reorganization of the hydrogen-bond network, despite the overall number of H-bonds remaining constant across all different conditions. These results demonstrate that ammonia/water mixtures exhibit multiple, pathway-dependent amorphous states, extending known water polyamorphism to heterogeneous H-bonded binary mixtures. This has fundamental implications for ice formation, stability, and dynamics in planetary and astrophysical environments.