Researchers Simulate World's Most Complex Crystal

Posted on January 7, 2015

Researchers at the University of Michigan have simulated the world's most complex crystal. The icosahedral quasicrystal (eye-KO-suh-HE-druhl QUAZ-eye-cris-tahl) was simulated using a computer simulation. The crystal is symmetric when rotated and it looks ordered to the eye but it actually has no repeating pattern. You can view an interactive visualization of the crystal here on nature.com.

Michael Engel, a research investigator in the Department of Chemical Engineering, is the first author of a research paper (published here in Nature Materials) about the new computer simulation. Engel notes that icosahedra do not nicely fill space. He compares it to trying to fill a bathroom floor with pentagons.

Engel says, "An icosahedral quasicrystal is nature's way of achieving icosahedral symmetry in the bulk. This is only possible by giving up periodicity, which means order by repetition. The result is a highly complicated structure."

Icosahedral quasicrystals are commonly found in metal alloys. Engineers are still searching for ways to use make them with other types of materials. If icosahedral quasicrystals could be made with other materials they can have a property called a "photonic band gap." Particles arranged this way could potentially trap and route light coming from all directions.

Sharon Glotzer, the Stuart W Churchill Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering at U-M, says in a statement, "If icosahedral quasicrystals could be made from nano- and micro-meter sized particles, they could be useful in a variety of applications including communication and display technologies, and even camouflage."

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