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Ice-templating is a well-established processing route for porous ceramics. Because of the structure/properties relationships, it is essential to better understand and control the solidification microstructures. Ice-templating is based on…

We developed a consistent mathematical model for isotropic crystal growth on a substrate covered by the mask material with a periodic series of parallel long trenches where the substrate is exposed to the vapor phase. Surface diffusion and…

Numerous studies have focused on a low surface energy coating and a micro/nanoscale surface texture to design functional surfaces that delay frost formation and reduce ice adhesion. However, the scientific challenges for in developing…

Spontaneous symmetry breaking and emergent polar order are each of fundamental importance to a range of scientific disciplines, as well as generating rich phase behaviour in liquid crystals (LCs). Here, we show the union of these phenomena…

Initially cold and spherically symmetric self-gravitating systems may give rise to a virial equilibrium state which is far from spherically symmetric, and typically triaxial. We focus here on how the degree of symmetry breaking in the final…

We have investigated the formation of 10-50 mm long ``ice spikes'' that sometimes appear on the free surface of water when it solidifies. By freezing water under different conditions, we measured the probability of ice spike formation as a…

The physics of ice crystal growth from the liquid phase, especially in the presence of salt, has received much less attention than the growth of snow crystals from the vapour phase. The growth of so-called frazil ice by solidification of a…

After rainfall, pine needles often float on the surface of small puddles. As the water evaporates, they self-assemble into distinct clusters. Motivated by this natural phenomenon, we experimentally investigate the dynamic evolution of…

Despite relevance to disparate areas such as cloud microphysics and tribology, major gaps in the understanding of the structures and phase transitions of low-dimensional water ice remain. Here we report a first principles study of confined…

The fundamental properties of ice have always attracted a lot of interest due to omnipresence of ice in many different natural contexts. Since cubic ice recently become experimentally accessible from a low-density gas hydrate precursor [1,…

We will show that the complex shapes of snow crystals can be explained from a simple basic mechanism that is also responsible for the appearance of many others structures in nature. We expect that this new physical mechanism, that follows…

Self-assembly of nanoparticles can enable composites with pre-designed properties but remains challenged by reproducing structural diversity of atomic and molecular crystals. We combine anisotropic elastic and weakly screened electrostatic…

Stable array of point defects was generated in nematic liquid crystal. Point defects with topological charge of +1 and -1 (hedgehogs) were generated in vertically aligned liquid crystal cell. The hedgehogs were arranged in square or…

It has been implicitly assumed that ices on grains in molecular clouds and proto planetary disks are formed by homogeneous layers regardless of their composition or crystallinity. To verify this assumption, we observed the H2O deposition…

We investigate theoretically globally nonuniform configurations of quantized-flux vortices in clean superconductors trapped by an external force field that induces a nonuniform vortex density profile. Using an extensive series of numerical…

We report a study on the kinetics of drying of a droplet of aqueous gelatin containing sodium chloride. The process of drying recorded on video, clearly shows different regimes of growth leading to a variety of crystalline patterns. Large…

Starting from Gauss and Kelvin, knots in fields were postulated behaving like particles, but experimentally they were found only as transient features or required complex boundary conditions to exist and couldn't self-assemble into…

The growth of snow crystals is dependent on the temperature and saturation of the environment. In the case of dendrites, Reiter's local two-dimensional model provides a realistic approach to the study of dendrite growth. In this paper we…

We examine the behavior of spherical silica particles trapped at an air-nematic liquid crystal interface. When a strong normal anchoring is imposed, the beads spontaneously form various structures depending on their area density and the…

We present a model of the growth of water ice on silicate grains in the circumstellar envelopes of Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars and Red Super Giants. We consider the growth of ice by gas grain collisions, the thermal evaporation of…