Spotlight Detail
Siang Yong Lim and Chris Henley
Professor Chris Henley and undergraduate Siang Yong Lim study quasi-crystals: materials (typically metal alloys) that have highly ordered states like a crystal, yet have rotational symmetry (usually five-fold) which is utterly incompatible with periodicity as an ordinary crystal has. Henley and Lim focus on the questions "How can we describe the atomic structure of these materials?" and "Why do they form quasi-crystals?" "There are two competing approaches," says Henley. "One is that there is an ideal quasi-crystal state that a real quasi-crystal approaches (similar to how we view ordinary crystals). The other is a random picture in which the order emerges from a statistical averaging process. To test these two approaches we conduct computer simulations by putting in good approximations to the forces acting on the atoms and seeing what happens."
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