Consider the ‘anticrystal’

Science Focus

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For the last century, the concept of crystals has been a mainstay of solid-state physics. Crystals are paragons of order; crystalline materials are defined by the repeating patterns their constituent atoms and molecules make. Now physicists at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago have evidence that a new concept should undergird our understanding of most materials: the anticrystal, a theoretical solid that is completely disordered. Materials can be described as being on a spectrum from a perfectly ordered crystal to a perfectly disordered anticrystal. Their work suggests that, when trying to understand a real material’s mechanical properties, scientists would be better served in many cases by starting with the framework of the anticrystal and adding order, rather than starting with a perfect crystal and adding disorder. That is because the mechanical properties of even a slightly disordered solid can have more in common with an anticrystal than a perfect crystal. Understanding these properties is critical for modeling how materials will respond to stress, as well as for designing new materials and predicting their behavior. The study, published in Nature Physics, was conducted by Andrea Liu, a professor of physics in Penn’sSchool of Arts & Sciences; Carl Goodrich, a graduate student in her group; and Sidney

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