By Guy Spriggs
Experimental work on quasicrystal tilings by UK physics and astronomy professor Lance De Long’s group was recently featured on the cover of “Physical Review Letters.”
De Long says the artificial ferromagnetic quasicrystals at the center of his work were celebrated because such intricate patterns had never been fabricated before.
“It’s all about topology,” he explained. “The fact it’s nickel-iron doesn’t matter in any details. We can do what we want with [the design] within reason. The basic properties of it are determined just by its pattern.”
The artificial quasicrystals De Long’s group produced are composed of a network of sub-micron-scale thin-film segments, taking the shape