Related papers: Particle-mediated nucleation pathways are imprinte…
Intracellular calcium is regulated in part by the release of Ca$^{2+}$ ions from the endoplasmic reticulum via inositol-4,5-triphosphate receptor (IP$_3$R) channels (among other possibilities such as RyR and L-type calcium channels). The…
Calcium is an ubiquitous second messenger that triggers a plethora of key physiological responses. The events are initiated in micro- or nano-sized compartments and determined by the complex interactions with calcium-binding proteins and…
The thermodynamics and kinetics of crystallization of nanoparticles, as opposed to bulk phases, may be influenced by surface and size effects. We investigate the importance of such factors in the crystallization process of gold, silver, and…
The nucleation of crystals from the liquid melt is often characterized by a competition between different crystalline structures or polymorphs, and can result in nuclei with heterogeneous compositions. These mixed-phase nuclei can display…
Growing crystals form a cavity when placed against a wall. The birth of the cavity is observed both by optical microscopy of sodium chlorate crystals (NaClO$_3$) growing in the vicinity of a glass surface, and in simulations with a thin…
The nucleation and growth of calcite is an important research in scientific and industrial field. Both the macroscopic and microscopic observation of calcite growth have been reported. Now, with the development of microfluidic device, we…
The complexity and richness of phenomena governing alloy crystal growth can be unraveled by examining the three-dimensional atomic-level distribution of elements and impurities incorporated during growth. These species act as atomic…
Amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) has been widely found in biomineralization, both as a transient precursor and a stable phase, but how organisms accurately control its formation and crystallization pathway remains unclear. Here, we aim to…
The fundamental understanding of crystallization, in terms of microscopic kinetic and thermodynamic details, remains a key challenge in the physical sciences. Here, by using in situ graphene liquid cell transmission electron microscopy, we…
Nucleation is generally viewed as a structural fluctuation that passes a critical size to eventually become a stable emerging new phase. However, this concept leaves out many details, such as changes in cluster composition and competing…
Inclusion of additives into calcite crystals allows one to embed non-native proprieties into the inorganic matrix and obtain new functional materials. Up to now, few parameters have been taken into account to evaluate the efficiency of…
We study a quasi-two-dimensional macroscopic system of magnetic spherical particles settled on a shallow concave dish under a temporally oscillating magnetic field. The system reaches a stationary state where the energy losses from…
Spherulites are complex polycrystalline structures that form through the self-assembly of small aggregated nanocrystals starting from a central point and growing radially outward. Despite their wide prevalence and relevance to fields…
We study the formation of calcium carbonate, through the solid-gas interaction of amorphous Ca-silicate with gaseous CO2, at elevated pressures, and link this to the possible presence of calcium carbonate in a number of circumstellar and…
When calcium titanate crystals are grown from stoichiometric melts, they crystallize in the cubic perovskite structure. Upon cooling to room temperature they undergo subsequent phase transitions to tetragonal and orthorhombic modifications.…
This work unravels the atomic details of the interaction of solute atoms with nanoscale crystalline defects. The complexity of this phenomenon is elucidated through detailed atom probe tomographic investigations on epitaxially-strained,…
Nucleation is an activated process in which the system has to overcome a free energy barrier in order for a first-order phase transition between the metastable and the stable phases to take place. In the liquid-to-solid transition the…
Viscoelastic phase separation of colloidal suspensions can be interrupted to form gels either by glass transition or by crystallization. With a new confocal microscopy protocol, we follow the entire kinetics of phase separation, from…
The aggregation of binary colloids of same size and balanced charges is studied by Brownian dynamics simulations for dilute suspensions. It is shown that, under appropriate conditions, the formation of colloidal crystals is dominated by…
In this paper we propose a new mathematical model describing the effect of phosphocitrate (PC) on sodium sulphate crystallization inside bricks. This model describes salt and water transport, and crystal formation in a one dimensional…