crystals

A levitated droplet during heating by a laser to just above the melting temperature.Using the Electrostatic Levitator at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a physicist at Washington University in St. Louis led a research team that validated a 50-year-old hypothesis explaining how liquid metals resist turning into solids. The research, led by Ken Kelton, Ph.D., a professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, is featured in the July 2003 issue of Physics Today, including an image on the magazine’s cover of a solid drop of metal suspended inside the levitator. The NASA-funded research challenges theories about how crystals form by a process called nucleation, important in everything from materials to biological systems.”Nucleation is everywhere,” says Kelton. “It’s the major way physical systems change from one phase to another. The better we understand it, the better we can tailor the properties of materials to meet specific needs.”

Using the Electrostatic Levitator at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a physicist at Washington University in St. Louis led a research team that validated a 50-year-old hypothesis explaining how liquid metals resist turning into solids. The research, led by Ken Kelton, Ph.D., a professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, is featured in the July 2003 issue of Physics Today and includes an image on the magazine’s cover of a solid drop of metal suspended inside the levitator. The NASA-funded research challenges theories about how crystals form by a process called nucleation, important in everything from materials to biological systems.