Aperiodic Crystals: From Modulated Phases to Quasicrystals: Structure and Properties
Ted Janssen, Gervais Chapuis, and Marc de Boissieu
Abstract
Until the 1970s all materials studied consisted of periodic arrays of unit cells, or were amorphous. In the following decades a new class of solid state matter, called aperiodic crystals, has been found. It is a long-range ordered structure, but without lattice periodicity. It is found in a wide range of materials: organic and inorganic compounds, minerals (including a substantial portion of the earth’s crust), and metallic alloys, under various pressures and temperatures. Because of the lack of periodicity the usual techniques for the study of structure and physical properties no longer work, ... More
Until the 1970s all materials studied consisted of periodic arrays of unit cells, or were amorphous. In the following decades a new class of solid state matter, called aperiodic crystals, has been found. It is a long-range ordered structure, but without lattice periodicity. It is found in a wide range of materials: organic and inorganic compounds, minerals (including a substantial portion of the earth’s crust), and metallic alloys, under various pressures and temperatures. Because of the lack of periodicity the usual techniques for the study of structure and physical properties no longer work, and new techniques have to be developed. This book deals with the characterization of the structure, the structure determination, and the study of the physical properties, especially the dynamical and electronic properties of aperiodic crystals. The treatment is based on a description in a space with more dimensions than three, the so-called superspace. This allows us to generalize the standard crystallography and to look differently at the dynamics. The three main classes of aperiodic crystals, modulated phases, incommensurate composites, and quasicrystals are treated from a unified point of view which stresses the similarities of the various systems. The book assumes as a prerequisite a knowledge of the fundamental techniques of crystallography and the theory of condensed matter, and covers the literature at the forefront of the field.
Keywords:
aperiodic crystal,
incommensurate,
composite crystal,
quasicrystals,
superspace
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2018 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198824442 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: August 2018 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198824442.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Ted Janssen, author
Formerly of the Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Nijmegen
Gervais Chapuis, author
Professor Emeritus, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
Marc de Boissieu, author
Director of Research at CNRS, Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS
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