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Materials science

Complex order in soft matter

Spherical micelles can aggregate into highly organized structures. New micelle arrangements mimic known atomic crystals, both periodic and aperiodic, and provide evidence for a material with 18-fold rotational symmetry.

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Figure 1: Periodic and aperiodic micellar phases.

M. ENGEL

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Correspondence to Sharon C. Glotzer.

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Glotzer, S., Engel, M. Complex order in soft matter. Nature 471, 309–310 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/471309a

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