Deforming Ice with Drops.

A uniform solidification front undergoes nontrivial deformations when encountering an insoluble dispersed particle in a melt. For solid particles, the overall deformation characteristics are primarily dictated by heat transfer between the particle and the surrounding, remaining unaffected by the rate of approach of the solidification front. In this Letter we show that, conversely, when interacting with a droplet or a bubble, the deformation behavior exhibits entirely different and unexpected behavior.

Freezing-induced topological transition of double-emulsion.

Solidification of complex liquids is pertinent to numerous natural and industrial processes. Here, we examine the freezing of a W/O/W double-emulsion, , water-in-oil compound droplets dispersed in water. We show that the solidification of such hierarchical emulsions can trigger a topological transition; for example, in our case, we observe the transition from the stable W/O/W state to a (frozen) O/W single-emulsion configuration.

Thin-Film-Mediated Deformation of Droplet during Cryopreservation.

Freezing of dispersions is omnipresent in science and technology. While the passing of a freezing front over a solid particle is reasonably understood, this is not so for soft particles. Here, using an oil-in-water emulsion as a model system, we show that when engulfed into a growing ice front, a soft particle severely deforms.