• Klumov, B.
• Kotani, M.
• Fujita, T.
• Kang, L. J.
• Chen, M. W.
• Hirata, A.
• Yavari, A. R.

Abstract

<jats:title>Order, Order</jats:title><jats:p>The structure of glassy materials, which are known to have short-range order but no long-range pattern, continues to be a puzzle. One current theory is that some glassy materials possess icosahedral ordering, a motif that cannot show translational periodicity.<jats:bold>Hirata<jats:italic>et al.</jats:italic></jats:bold>(p.<jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" issue="6144" page="376" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="341" xlink:href="10.1126/science.1232450">376</jats:related-article>, published online 11 July) obtained diffraction patterns from subnanometer volumes in a metallic glass, which show some, but not all, of the expected features of an icosahedron. Simulations suggest that the patterns arise from icosahedrons distorted to include features of the face-centered cubic structure. This observation is different from the predictions of molecular dynamics simulations and provides pivotal information in understanding the competition between the formation of the globally inexpensive long-range order and the locally inexpensive short-range order.</jats:p>

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• theory
• simulation
• glass
• glass
• molecular dynamics