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CRYSTAL STRUCTURE

Order in one dimension

Nature Materials volume 18, pages 4–6 (2019)Cite this article

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A crystal structure with one-dimensional order is identified in oxide ceramics, which is distinguished from the well-known categories of solid structures and potentially provides unexpected properties.

Prior to 1984, solid materials were classified into two categories — crystalline or amorphous — based on whether or not their atoms had translational symmetry in all three dimensions. The discovery of quasicrystals1 — which have long-range order with rotational symmetry, but no translational periodicity — upsets this paradigm, resulting in a third classification. Now, writing in Nature Materials, Deqiang Yin and colleagues2 report the discovery of a fourth way for atoms to arrange themselves: with one-dimensional (1D) translational order. This ordering is observed to occur at the intersection of multiple crystalline grains in ceramic oxide thin films.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of symmetric tilt grain boundaries and the 1D ordered structure.

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  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Eric A. Stach

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  1. Eric A. Stach
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Correspondence to Eric A. Stach.

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Stach, E.A. Order in one dimension. Nature Mater 18, 4–6 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0260-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0260-9

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