Using sound waves to make patterns that never repeat

Phys.org  April 14, 2021 Crystals have been shown to be stiffer than similar periodic or disordered materials and conduct electricity. Researchers at the University of Utah have shown how ultrasound waves can organize carbon particles in water resulting in “quasicrystals” with custom magnetic or electrical properties. They experimentally demonstrated this by using ultrasound waves to assemble quasiperiodic patterns of carbon nanoparticles in water using an octagonal arrangement of ultrasound transducers, and documented good agreement between theory and experiments. The theory also applies to obtaining quasiperiodic patterns in other situations where particles move with linear waves, such as optical lattices. According […]