Frozen patterns of impacted droplets: From conical tips to toroidal shapes

We report frozen ice patterns for the water droplets impacting on a cold substrate through high-speed images. These patterns can be manipulated by several physical parameters (the droplet size, falling height, and substrate temperature), and the scaling analysis has a remarkable agreement with the phase diagram. The observed double-concentric toroidal shape is attributed to the correlation between the impacting dynamics and freezing process, as confirmed by the spatiotemporal evolution of the droplet temperature, the identified timescale associated with the morphology and solidification (t(inn) similar or equal to tau(sol)), and the ice front-advection model. These results for frozen patterns provide insight into the complex interplay of the rapid impacting hydrodynamics, the transient heat transfer, and the intricate solidification process.