The discovery of a crystal whose atoms are packed in a pattern that never repeats has won Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry. The structures in quasicrystals, as they ...

For scientists and engineers, the best way to understand a new or unknown material--whether it's an alloy, a pharmaceutical or a meteorite--is to delve into its atoms. Techniques such as X-ray ...

Researchers have demonstrated a technique for mapping deformation in metals that can recover destroyed serial numbers on metal objects such as firearms, a common challenge in forensics. Researchers at ...

Scientists observe a visible time crystal for the first time, revealing a phase of matter that repeats patterns through time.

Today's computers store information using only two values: 0 and 1. But as electronic devices become smaller and reach their ...

Because liquid crystals are similar to oil, the surfactants were attracted to the liquid crystal shells, causing the molecules to order in different ways and create striking patterns. The more soap ...

(Nanowerk News) When Lisa Tran set out to investigate patterns in liquid crystals, she didn't know what to expect. When she first looked through the microscope, she saw dancing iridescent spheres with ...