Zinc snowflakes
DOI: 10.1063/PT.3.5166
The metal gallium is liquid at room temperature, which gives the chemical element all sorts of unique properties (see the article by Michael Dickey, Physics Today, April 2021, page 30

Zinc crystals can’t be sieved and filtered from liquid gallium in the same way that particles are separated from an aqueous solution or an organic solvent. To isolate the zinc snowflakes, the researchers tuned the electrical properties of the gallium to break its surface tension. Then the gallium was carefully vacuum filtrated from the delicate snowflakes. The researchers are hopeful that their methods can offer a new manufacturing pathway for growing complex metallic nanostructures. (S. A. Idrus-Saidi et al., Science 378, 1118, 2022, doi:10.1126/science.abm2731
More about the Authors
Alex Lopatka. alopatka@aip.org