#PhysicsJournalClub
"Direct observation of colloidal quasicrystallization"
by Y. Gao, B. Sprinkle, DWM Marr, and N. Wu
Nat. Phys. (2025)
doi.org/10.1038/s41567-025-02859-z
Quasicrystals are weird. When you solidify something it tends to get into a high-order state: a crystal. If you cool it down too fast so it doesn't manage to make a monocrystal it will form a polycrystalline state or, worse case scenario, something completely amorphous like a glass.
But quasicrystals are weird. They are ordered structures that lack a periodicity and making them is not easy.
In this paper the authors show how paramagnetic colloidal microspheres (i.e. big enough to be clearly visible under a microscope) subject to an electromagnetic field spontaneously arrange themselves into a quasicrystal.
This is 100% not my field, but the ability to create quasicrystals on demand looks so cool!