1001 reasons to be interested in freezing
What do metallurgy, the food industry, the emergence of life on earth, the growth of single crystals of silicon, the structure of soils in the polar regions, the cryopreservation of reproductive cells, and the treatment of wastewater have in common? Freezing is involved in all these situations. More specifically, crystals are interacting with objects of various nature (particles, cells, bubbles), and the expected result of the process or phenomenon depends on the interaction between these objects and the growing crystals. In this talk, I will illustrate how the understanding and control of these phenomena have progressed over the last century, how they are used today, and what remains to be discovered. I will show in particular the recent contribution of confocal fluorescence cryomicroscopy, developed in the laboratory, to these problems.
