A lab mistake led to self-forming spiral patterns on metal surfaces, revealing chemical-mechanical interactions.

A team of physicists at UCLA has uncovered a strange and unexpected phenomenon—spiral patterns forming spontaneously on solid surfaces. The discovery, which began with a simple mistake in the lab, is ...

UCLA doctoral student Yilin Wong left a sample out by mistake. It was a small chip made of germanium, topped with thin layers of metal, and had a drop of water on it. The next day, she noticed tiny ...

Hundreds of near-identical spiral patterns can spontaneously form on a centimeter square germanium chip. Moreover, small changes in experiment parameters, such as the thickness of the metal film ...