Most materials and crystals have an atomic structure which is described by a regular stacking of a microscopic fundamental unit, the unit cell. However, there are also many well ordered materials without such a unit cell. This book deals with the structure determination and a discussion of the main special properties of these materials.

This book explains aperiodic crystals, which cannot be described by the classical model of 3-dimensional periodicities. The study of these new types of material necessitates describing them in dimensions larger than three. It describes the physical and mathematical methods to solve and characterize them, and to understand their physical properties.

Aperiodic Crystals collects 37 selected papers from the scientific contributions presented at Aperiodic 2012 - the Seventh International Conference on Aperiodic Crystalsheld held in Cairns, Australia, 2-7 of September 2012. The volume discusses state-of-the-art discoveries, new trends and applications of aperiodic crystals - including incommensurately modulated crystals, composite crystals, and quasicrystals - from a wide range of different perspectives. Starting with a general historical introduction to aperiodic crystals, the book proceeds to examine the complex mathematics of aperiodic long-range order, as well as the theoretical approaches aimed at understanding some of the unique properties and mechanisms underlying the existence of aperiodic crystals. The book then explores in detail such topics as complex metallic alloys, modulated structures, quasicrystals and their approximants, dynamics, disorder and defects in quasicrystals. It concludes with an analysis of quasicrystal surfaces and their properties. By describing the latest research and the progress made on the structure determination of aperiodic crystals and the influence of this unique structure on their physical properties, this book represents a valuable resource to mathematicians, crystallographers, physicists, chemists, materials and surface scientists, and even architects and artists, interested in the fascinating nature of aperiodic crystals.

This book deals with various aspects of aperiodic crystals, quasicrystals, incommensurate crystals, composite crystals, modulated crystals and polytypes. It is mainly oriented towards crystallographic investigations and to the search for new theoretical and methodological methods aiming to model this state of matter and to understand the links between the structure and the properties. Basically multidisciplinary, the book covers many fields of aperiodic crystals, from materials science to mathematics.

The conference promotes the theoretical and methodological development of crystallographic investigations of aperiodic crystals including modulated structures, polytypes, incommensurate misfit or composite crystals and quasi crystals. It also promotes scientific interchange among groups working in the various fields of aperiodic materials. Special emphasis will be given to multidisciplinary aspects of aperiodicity.

Over the past several decades, a This book deals with the characterisation of the structure, the structure determination and the study of the physical properties, especially dynamical and electronic properties of aperiodic crystals. The treatment is based on a description in a space with more dimensions than three, the so-called superspace. This allows us to generalise the standard crystallography and to look differently at the dynamics. The three main classes of aperiodic crystals, modulated phases, incommensurate composites and quasicrystals are treated from a unified point of view, which stresses similarities of the various systems. The book assumes as a prerequisite a knowledge of the fundamental techniques of crystallography and the theory of condensed matter, and covers the literature at the forefront of the field. Since the first edition of this book in 2007, the field of aperiodic crystals has developed considerably, with the discovery of new materials and new structures. Progress has been made in structure determination, in the interpretation and understanding of the structural characteristics and in the calculation of electrons and phonons. This new edition reflects these new developments, and it includes discussions of natural quasicrystals, incommensurate magnetic and multiferroic structures, photonic and mesoscopic quasicrystals. The second edition also includes a number of new exercises that give the reader an opportunityt to check their understanding of the material.

Quasicrystals are non-periodic solids that were discovered in 1982 by Dan Shechtman, Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry 2011. The mathematics that underlies this discovery or that proceeded from it, known as the theory of Aperiodic Order, is the subject of this comprehensive multi-volume series. This second volume begins to develop the theory in more depth. A collection of leading experts, among them Robert V. Moody, cover various aspects of crystallography, generalising appropriately from the classical case to the setting of aperiodically ordered structures. A strong focus is placed upon almost periodicity, a central concept of crystallography that captures the coherent repetition of local motifs or patterns, and its close links to Fourier analysis. The book opens with a foreword by Jeffrey C. Lagarias on the wider mathematical perspective and closes with an epilogue on the emergence of quasicrystals, written by Peter Kramer, one of the founders of the field.