3,537 research outputs found
Stability of Colloidal Quasicrystals
Freezing of charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions and relative stabilities
of crystals and quasicrystals are studied using thermodynamic perturbation
theory. Macroion interactions are modelled by effective pair potentials
combining electrostatic repulsion with polymer-depletion or van der Waals
attraction. Comparing free energies -- counterion terms included -- for
elementary crystals and rational approximants to icosahedral quasicrystals,
parameters are identified for which one-component quasicrystals are stabilized
by a compromise between packing entropy and cohesive energy.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Thermodynamically Stable One-Component Metallic Quasicrystals
Classical density-functional theory is employed to study finite-temperature
trends in the relative stabilities of one-component quasicrystals interacting
via effective metallic pair potentials derived from pseudopotential theory.
Comparing the free energies of several periodic crystals and rational
approximant models of quasicrystals over a range of pseudopotential parameters,
thermodynamically stable quasicrystals are predicted for parameters approaching
the limits of mechanical stability of the crystalline structures. The results
support and significantly extend conclusions of previous ground-state
lattice-sum studies.Comment: REVTeX, 13 pages + 2 figures, to appear, Europhys. Let
Time Quasilattices in Dissipative Dynamical Systems
We establish the existence of `time quasilattices' as stable trajectories in
dissipative dynamical systems. These tilings of the time axis, with two unit
cells of different durations, can be generated as cuts through a periodic
lattice spanned by two orthogonal directions of time. We show that there are
precisely two admissible time quasilattices, which we term the infinite Pell
and Clapeyron words, reached by a generalization of the period-doubling
cascade. Finite Pell and Clapeyron words of increasing length provide
systematic periodic approximations to time quasilattices which can be verified
experimentally. The results apply to all systems featuring the universal
sequence of periodic windows. We provide examples of discrete-time maps, and
periodically-driven continuous-time dynamical systems. We identify quantum
many-body systems in which time quasilattices develop rigidity via the
interaction of many degrees of freedom, thus constituting dissipative discrete
`time quasicrystals'.Comment: 38 pages, 14 figures. This version incorporates "Pell and Clapeyron
Words as Stable Trajectories in Dynamical Systems", arXiv:1707.09333.
Submission to SciPos
Proliferation of anomalous symmetries in colloidal monolayers subjected to quasiperiodic light fields
Quasicrystals provide a fascinating class of materials with intriguing
properties. Despite a strong potential for numerous technical applications, the
conditions under which quasicrystals form are still poorly understood.
Currently, it is not clear why most quasicrystals hold 5- or 10-fold symmetry
but no single example with 7 or 9-fold symmetry has ever been observed. Here we
report on geometrical constraints which impede the formation of quasicrystals
with certain symmetries in a colloidal model system. Experimentally, colloidal
quasicrystals are created by subjecting micron-sized particles to
two-dimensional quasiperiodic potential landscapes created by n=5 or seven
laser beams. Our results clearly demonstrate that quasicrystalline order is
much easier established for n = 5 compared to n = 7. With increasing laser
intensity we observe that the colloids first adopt quasiperiodic order at local
areas which then laterally grow until an extended quasicrystalline layer forms.
As nucleation sites where quasiperiodicity originates, we identify highly
symmetric motifs in the laser pattern. We find that their density strongly
varies with n and surprisingly is smallest exactly for those quasicrystalline
symmetries which have never been observed in atomic systems. Since such high
symmetry motifs also exist in atomic quasicrystals where they act as
preferential adsorption sites, this suggests that it is indeed the deficiency
of such motifs which accounts for the absence of materials with e.g. 7-fold
symmetry
Symmetry Breaking and Order in the Age of Quasicrystals
The discovery of quasicrystals has changed our view of some of the most basic
notions related to the condensed state of matter. Before the age of
quasicrystals, it was believed that crystals break the continuous translation
and rotation symmetries of the liquid-phase into a discrete lattice of
translations, and a finite group of rotations. Quasicrystals, on the other
hand, possess no such symmetries-there are no translations, nor, in general,
are there any rotations, leaving them invariant. Does this imply that no
symmetry is left, or that the meaning of symmetry should be revised? We review
this and other questions related to the liquid-to-crystal symmetry-breaking
transition using the notion of indistinguishability. We characterize the
order-parameter space, describe the different elementary excitations, phonons
and phasons, and discuss the nature of dislocations-keeping in mind that we are
now living in the age of quasicrystals.Comment: To appear in a special issue on quasicrystals of The Israel Journal
of Chemistry, in celebration of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistr
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