Quasicrystals : Third Natural Source
Scientists have discovered a third natural source of quasicrystals.
- Quasicrystal, also called quasi-periodic crystal, matter formed atomically in a manner somewhere between the amorphous solids of glasses and the precise pattern of crystals.
- In quasicrystals, the atoms are arranged in a pattern that repeats itself at irregular, yet predictable, intervals.
- The American-Israeli scientist Dan Shechtman discovered quasicrystals in the lab in 1982.
- The first natural quasicrystal found was as microscopic grains in a fragment of the Khatyrka meteorite lying in the Koryak mountains of Russia.
- The second time scientists found natural quasicrystals in the remains of the Trinity test of the Manhattan Project.
- Recently in the Sand Hills dunes in northern Nebraska, where scientists found silicate glass which is a dodecagonal quasicrystal, rare even for quasicrystals.
