Winter 'Fail'

Ice crystal growth represent one of the finest examples of symmetry in nature amidst the chaos that encompasses it's genesis. The birth of ice crystals is a song of ambient temperature and water vapor supersaturation with their growth being dictated by a marriage of non-equilibrium molecular dynamics at the ice/water and ice/vapor interfaces engendering a rich phenomenology of solidification behaviors under different environs. To elucidate the mechanism of ice crystal’s pattern formation and intertwined morphological instability, we have examined the growth of a single crystal from water vapor, focusing on the underlying physical processes that govern their growth rates and structure formation. This is what the current image (captured as a part of my ongoing doctoral research at UIC) intends to convey. To demonstrate the hypnotic beauty of this rare jewel amidst an unkind wintry wind, I have carried out experiments in a simulated cloud chamber under controlled frigid environmental conditions. The fundamental investigation of the life cycle of ice crystal will advance our understanding of the efficacy of novel materials in preventing ice/frost formation on functional surfaces, bringing us a step closer in defeating nature’s artist at its own craft.