  Recently, unusual and strikingly beautiful seahorse-like growth patterns have
been observed under conditions of quasi-two-dimensional growth. These
`S'-shaped patterns strongly break two-dimensional inversion symmetry; however
such broken symmetry occurs only at the level of overall morphology, as the
clusters are formed from achiral molecules with an achiral unit cell. Here we
describe a mechanism which gives rise to chiral growth morphologies without
invoking microscopic chirality. This mechanism involves trapped electrostatic
charge on the growing cluster, and the enhancement of growth in regions of
large electric field. We illustrate the mechanism with a tree growth model,
with a continuum model for the motion of the one-dimensional boundary, and with
microscopic Monte Carlo simulations. Our most dramatic results are found using
the continuum model, which strongly exhibits spontaneous chiral symmetry
breaking, and in particular finned `S' shapes like those seen in the
experiments.
