The field of solidification has evolved from metallurgical alchemy to a predictive science over the past century. Our particular focus is on metals and their alloys, whose thermophysical properties tend to differ distinctively from that of organic systems. Rapid advances in modeling efforts and real-time experiments have yielded a wealth of new and quantitative information across relevant length- and time scales, thereby expanding our understanding of the liquid-to-solid phase transition. The articles in this issue highlight some important recent developments in the field, including solidification at extreme rates, as well as the state-of-the-art computational and experimental techniques that allow us to probe the otherwise improbable. In light of this progress, we identify critical issues and open questions that point to future research directions in solidification science.

在过去的一个世纪中，凝固领域已从冶金炼金术演变为预测科学。我们特别关注金属及其合金，它们的热物理性质往往与有机体系明显不同。建模工作和实时实验的飞速发展，已经在相关的长度和时间范围内产生了大量新的定量信息，从而扩大了我们对液相到固相转变的理解。本期文章重点介绍了该领域最近的一些重要进展，包括以极高的速率固化以及最新的计算和实验技术，这些技术使我们能够探索原本不可能的事情。鉴于这一进展，