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Nature 454, 420-421 (24 July 2008) | doi:10.1038/454420a; Published online 23 July 2008

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Materials science: A tale of two tilings

Sharon C. Glotzer1 & Aaron S. Keys1

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What do you get when you cross a crystal with a quasicrystal? The answer is a structure that links the ancient tiles of Archimedes, the iconic Fibonacci sequence of numbers and a book from the seventeenth century.

Quasicrystals are mosaic-like arrangements of atoms that have symmetries once thought to be impossible for crystals to adopt1. Primarily observed in certain metal alloys, these unusual structures are stronger and less deformable than analogous regular crystals, and have unusual frictional, catalytic and optical properties.

  1. Sharon C. Glotzer and Aaron S. Keys are in the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2136, USA.
    Email: sglotzer@umich.edu

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