SpringerBriefs in Crystallography – serie

This book describes the discovery of quasicrystals (icosahedral and decagonal) in an extraterrestrial rock from the Koryak Mountains of Far Eastern Russia. After a decade-long search for a natural quasicrystal, this discovery opened a new avenue in mineralogy and crystallography that could lead to further discoveries in geoscience, astronomy, condensed matter physics, and materials engineering. For the first time, minerals have been discovered that violate the symmetry restrictions of conventional crystallography. The natural occurrence of such crystals was unexpected, involving previously unknown processes. The fact that the quasicrystals were found in a meteorite formed in the earliest moments of the solar system means these processes have been active for over 4.5 billion years and have influenced the composition of the first objects to condense around the Sun. Finding quasicrystals formed in these extreme environments also informed the longstanding debate concerning the stabilityand robustness of quasicrystals. Recent shock experiments lend support to the hypothesis that the extraterrestrial quasicrystals formed as a result of hypervelocity impacts between objects in the early Solar system, and that they are probably less rare in the Milky Way.

This book explores the potential of quantum crystallography. The field accompanied the major milestones of x-ray diffraction and it has undergone a rapid evolution in the past few years. For this reason, some reflections are necessary in order to scrutinize the next steps and anticipate the future developments. After a short survey of the historical background and in depth description of the state of the art, some examples are provided of current and future applications of the know-how in this discipline. This implies attracting readership of both experts in the field and neophytes. The former will test their own views with the one exposed in the book; the newcomers, instead, will learn both what has been done and what could be done with quantum crystallography.