< Back to Contents
A Quasicrystal Construction Kit
Picturing complex alloy structures as overlapping atomic clusters
A quasicrystal's atomic arrangement can be understood in terms of a single repeating cluster that shares atoms with neighboring clusters.
References:
Steinhardt, P.J., et al. 1998. Experimental verification of the quasi-unit-cell model of quasicrystal structure. Nature 396(Nov. 5):55.
Further Readings:
Goldman, A.I., et al. 1996. Quasicrystalline materials. American Scientist 84(May-June):230.
Gummelt, P. 1996. Penrose tilings as coverings of congruent decagons. Geometriae Dedicata 62:1.
Peterson, I. 1996. Clusters and decagons. Science News 150(Oct. 12):232.
______. 1985. The fivefold way for crystals. Science News 127(March 23):188.
Steinhardt, P.J. 1997. Crazy crystals. New Scientist (Jan. 25):32.
______. 1996. New perspectives on forbidden symmetries, quasicrystals, and Penrose tilings. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 93(December):14267.
Urban, K.W. 1998. From tilings to coverings. Nature 396(Nov. 5):55.
Paul Steinhardt's new paradigm for quasicrystal structure is outlined at http://feynman.princeton.edu/~steinh/quasi/.
Sources:
Alan I. Goldman
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011
Paul J. Steinhardt
Department of Physics
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
Knut W. Urban
Institute of Solid State Physics
Helmholtz Research Centre Jülich
D-52425 Jülich
Germany
From Science News, Vol. 155, No. 4, January 23, 1999, p. 60. Copyright © 1999, Science Service.
