In a major breakthrough published in Nature
Communications, the universal laws which govern the formation of
nanostructured materials have been unveiled. Researchers led by
Prof. Alessio Zaccone at University of Milan and by Prof. Peter
Schall at University of Amsterdam, have demonstrated that the phase
transition through which colloidal nanoparticles aggregate into a
solid-like system-spanning material (a colloidal gel) is described
by universal laws that are independent of the peculiar
physico-chemical characteristics of a given system.