{"id":231181,"date":"2026-02-12T05:36:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/scientists-reveal-formation-mechanism-behind-spherical-assemblies-of-nanocrystals"},"modified":"2026-02-12T05:36:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:36:42","slug":"scientists-reveal-formation-mechanism-behind-spherical-assemblies-of-nanocrystals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/scientists-reveal-formation-mechanism-behind-spherical-assemblies-of-nanocrystals","title":{"rendered":"Scientists reveal formation mechanism behind spherical assemblies of nanocrystals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-reveal-formation-mechanism-behind-spherical-assemblies-of-nanocrystals.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>From table salt to snowflakes, and from gemstones to diamonds\u2014we encounter crystals everywhere in daily life, usually cubic (table salt) or hexagonal (snowflakes). Researchers from Noushine Shahidzadeh\u2019s group at the UvA Institute of Physics now demonstrate how mesmerizing spherical crystal shapes arise through structures called spherulites.<\/p>\n<p>A new study done in Shahidzadeh\u2019s lab at the Institute of Physics \/ Van der Waals Zeeman-Institute, reveals how neatly ordered (hemi-) spherical or pancake-like structures in nature can emerge from completely disordered salt solutions. Moreover, scientists can now harness these structures to create advanced materials. The work is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s42004-026-01892-0\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Communications Chemistry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From table salt to snowflakes, and from gemstones to diamonds\u2014we encounter crystals everywhere in daily life, usually cubic (table salt) or hexagonal (snowflakes). Researchers from Noushine Shahidzadeh\u2019s group at the UvA Institute of Physics now demonstrate how mesmerizing spherical crystal shapes arise through structures called spherulites. A new study done in Shahidzadeh\u2019s lab at the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1635],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}