• 1 Département de mathématiques et d’informatique

We consider the family of 3D minimal polyominoes inscribed in a rectanglar prism. These objects are polyominos and so they are connected sets of unitary cubic cells inscribed in a given rectangular prism of size $b\times k \times h$ and of minimal volume equal to $b+k+h-2$. They extend the concept of minimal 2D polyominoes inscribed in a rectangle studied in a previous work. Using their geometric structure and elementary combinatorial principles, we construct rational generating functions of minimal 3D polyominoes. We also obtain a number of exact formulas and recurrences for sub-families of these polyominoes.