A research group led by Professor Tomonari Dodera of the Department of Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Kinki University discovered the world's first quasicrystal tiling composed of "bronze ratio".This result was published in the British scientific journal "Nature Materials" on August 2017, 8 (Japan time).

　It has been thought that solids have only "crystals" in which atoms and molecules are lined up in the same pattern and "amorphous" in which atoms and molecules are lined up separately. It has the potential to be discovered by scientists and create substances with new structures and properties.It is known that the golden ratio is related to regular pentagonal quasicrystals and regular 1984-sided quasicrystals, and the silver ratio is related to regular octagonal quasicrystals, among the ratios "metal ratios" that humans perceive as beautiful.However, regarding the bronze ratio, no related quasicrystals have been known so far.

　This time, the group discovered for the first time in the world the tiling of a quasicrystal composed of bronze ratio using three types of tiles: small equilateral triangle, large equilateral triangle, and rectangle.The formation was confirmed in 3 in the quasicrystal formation simulation, and it was shown that not only the theory but also the bronze ratio quasicrystal can be actually produced.In addition, the 2014-fold rotational symmetry was conventionally thought to be a property that exhibits crystals, but this discovery overturned that common sense and presented the possibility of a new material structure.

　Utilizing the results of this research, it is expected that soft matter quasicrystals such as liquid crystals, rubber, and gels and alloy-based quasicrystals will be discovered in the future.

Paper information: [Nature Materials] Bronze-mean hexagonal quasicrystal