Newly Discovered Quasicrystal Found at Trinity Site
takyon writes:
Newly discovered quasicrystal was created by the first nuclear explosion at Trinity Site
The newly discovered material was formed accidentally in the blast of the first atomic bomb test, which resulted in the fusion of surrounding sand, the test tower, and copper transmission lines into a glassy material known as trinitite. Quasicrystals are exotic material that break the rules of classical crystalline materials. Materials such as sugar, salt, or quartz form crystals with what is known as a periodic order: the atoms are arranged in a pattern that repeats itself in three dimensions. Quasicrystals, first discovered in the 1980s, have an atomic structure of the constituent elements, but the pattern is not periodic. The quasicrystal, created by the Trinity explosion in a sample of red trinitite, has 5-fold rotational symmetry, which is not possible in a natural crystal. The symmetry group of the quasicrystal is the same as that of the regular 20-sided solid known as an icosahedron, and the chemistry is given by the formula Si61Cu30Ca7Fe2. This new quasicrystal is now the oldest known human-made quasicrystal, with an unmistakable timestamp (through its composition, discovery location, and radioactivity), indicating its moment of origin.
"Quasicrystals are formed in extreme environments that rarely exist on Earth," said [co-author Terry C.] Wallace, who is a geophysicist. "They require a traumatic event with extreme shock, temperature, and pressure. We don't typically see that, except in something as dramatic as a nuclear explosion." The thermodynamic/shock conditions under which this quasicrystal formed are roughly comparable to those that formed the natural quasicrystals discovered in the Khatyrka meteorite, which dates back at least hundreds of millions of years and perhaps as far back as the beginning of the solar system.
Journal Reference:
Luca Bindi, William Kolb, G. Nelson Eby, et al. Accidental synthesis of a previously unknown quasicrystal in the first atomic bomb test [$], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2101350118)
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.