Some images from our science

Oil droplets interacting with growing ice crystals

The beautiful nacre of the abalone shell.

Ice templated alumina

Inside the confocal

Frozen colloids

Boron Nitride platelets

3D view of ice crystals by X-rays tomoraphy

Colloids after drying, observed by confocal microscopy

Frozen colloids

Dried colloidal structures

Ice-templated alumina with facetted pores

Ice-templated feature

Silica fiber sittting on a glass slide

Drying pattern of a colloidal suspension (confocal microscopy)

Frozen emulsion

Close-up view of the nacre platelets. Their surface is rough, providing friction when they slide over each other.

Ice crystals growing in a colloidal suspension, observed by X-ray computed tomography.

Condensation droplets

Freezing emulsion, confocal microscopy

Frozen emulsion observed by confocal microscopy

Ice templated alumina

Dried colloids

Crack path in the synthetic nacre. The crack is deflected at every platelet, dissipating a lot of energy. © Florian Bouville

Frozen colloids

Bubble in a colloidal suspension

Atomic force microscopy of surface uplift in zirconia

Crack deviation in our bioinspired ceramic

Confocal microscopy of frozen stuff

Molecular dynamics model of the particles being moved around by the freezing interface

Tiny heart in a colloidal suspension

Ice-templated alumina

Vacancies in a tiny colloidal crystal

Microfluidics and laser

Solidification microstructure seen by confocal microscopy

Ceramic grain

The brick and mortar structure of the abalone shell. The protein layer, between the platelets, can clearly be observed here.

Ice-templated alumina

Emulsions observed by confocal microscopy

Ice templated alumina

Ice templated alumina

The nacre in the abalone is growing layer by layer. We don’t have the time to do that.

Plateau borders of a foam

Ice-templated feature

Ice-templated feature

Particle tracking gone artistic

Freezing under flow. The imprints of the crystals are all more or less parallel.