Art in Materials

🌀🌀🌀🌀 Patterns🌀🌀🌀🌀

From the branching of trees to the ripples in sand dunes, nature is full of stunning, intricate patterns. These patterns aren’t just beautiful—they emerge from simple rules, repeated over time, and shaped by physics.

One of the most fascinating places we see these patterns?
Inside metals—during solidification.

🌿 Patterns: Nature’s Language of Order

Why do snowflakes form six-fold symmetry?
Why do lightning bolts branch?
Why do zebra stripes or coral textures follow repeating motifs?

These patterns arise when a system responds to competing forces:
growth vs. constraint, diffusion vs. reaction, order vs. disorder. Despite their complexity, they often originate from self-organization—no master blueprint needed, just the right conditions.

This same concept plays out in the microstructures of solidifying materials.

❄️ Patterns During Solidification

When molten metal cools and turns solid, atoms arrange themselves based on temperature gradients, composition, and solid–liquid interface dynamics. The result?
Natural, intricate patterns that directly impact material properties.

Some examples:

• Dendrites – Tree-like structures that grow when metals freeze.
  
  

• Eutectic Lamellae – Striped patterns formed by two phases growing side-by-side.
  
  

• Cellular or fishbone morphologies – Found in directionally solidified alloys.
  
  

• Spirals, rods, or seaweed-like instabilities – Seen under rapid solidification or undercooled conditions.
  
  

These aren’t just visual curiosities—they are signatures of the underlying physics and they influence how strong, ductile, or conductive a material becomes.

🔬 What We Study at ASK-Materials

At ASK-Materials, we’re fascinated by how patterns emerge during solidification—and how we can control them to design better materials.

We use thermal gradients, directional solidification, laser remelting, and high-resolution imaging to observe:

• How competition between phases creates striped or rod-like eutectics.
  
  

• How instabilities at the solid–liquid interface lead to branching morphologies.
  
  

• How microstructure evolves in real time during in-situ experiments.
  
  

• How external forces—like cooling rate or composition—can tune the pattern.
  
  

By studying these patterns, we don’t just admire nature’s geometry—we harness it.

🧠 Why Patterns Matter

Patterns during solidification are more than art—they’re function encoded in form. They determine how:

• Heat flows through a material
  
  

• Cracks form or are resisted
  
  

• Strength and toughness emerge from the microscale
  
  

• Materials respond over time under real-world use
  
  

Controlling these patterns means controlling performance.

🌟 Nature as Our Guide, Science as Our Tool

Just as nature uses patterns to adapt, grow, and survive—we use patterns to engineer materials with purpose. At ASK-Materials, our goal is to turn the beauty of pattern formation into the science of material design.

From snowflakes to solidified alloys, every pattern tells a story.
We’re here to read it—and write the next chapter.