Focus: Catch a Quasiperiodic Wave

Published March 17, 2003 | Phys. Rev. Focus 11, 11 (2003) | DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevFocus.11.11 Quasiperiodic waves in a liquid may help researchers understand how electrons move through quasicrystals. Quasicrystals are unusual metallic alloys whose atoms are arranged in orderly patterns that are not quite crystalline. One of the many mysteries surrounding these materials is how to describe the motion of electrons inside them. Previous work has suggested that Bloch-like waveswhich describe electron motion in classic crystalscan occur in quasicrystals as well. In the 21 March print issue of PRL, researchers strengthen this case by showing Bloch-like liquid surface waves in a pool with a quasiperiodic floor pattern. This is the first time such waves have been seen in a fluid. Periodic patterns are easy to visualize. A floor tiled with squares or hexagons is periodicyou could pick the pattern up, slide it over a unit or two, and lay it back down over its original lines. Quasiperiodic patterns, though, are odd creatures. At first glance, they look periodicbits of the same pattern show up over and over, and the patterns have local rotational symmetries, like a pentagon. But they never quite repeat. When electrons move through crystalline materials, which have periodically arranged atoms, their motion can be described mathematically by Bloch functions. These functions describe the wavelike nature of the electrons and include the periodicity of the underlying material. But theres no such simple rule for electron motion in quasicrystals. A recent experiment mapped out electron energies in a quasicrystal and suggested that the electrons might follow Bloch-like waves, but the phenomenon is still not fully understood. In their new study, Jos-Luis Aragn, of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and his colleagues, looked at the problem from a different angle: they examined quasiperiodic liquid waves. They drilled small depressions in the bottom of a shallow, fluid-filled octagonal pan, at the vertices of a quasiperiodic pattern. Vibrating the pan vertically at 35 vibrations per second caused the fluid to form a quasiperiodic standing-wave pattern. Then the researchers sent a quick, transverse wave pulse across the fluid. The traveling wave going through the quasiperiodic pattern is analogous to an electron wave traversing a quasiperiodic material. The team found that the traveling wave pulse created a Bloch-like statea wave pattern related to the underlying quasiperiodic pattern. The spacing between the wave peaks was not constant, as in a periodic wave, but varied quasiperiodically between two values, which were related to the spacings in the pattern on the pans bottom. Patricia Thiel of Iowa State University in Ames says that the work complements previous experiments with quasicrystals. It has a major relationship to the long-standing question of How do electrons move in materials that dont have periodicity? she says. The beauty of this paper is that with these very elegant and simple experiments theyve provided a way to visualize how these effects can occur. Its just a lovely experiment. Lea Winerman Lea Winerman is a freelance science writer.

Highlighted article
Quasiperiodic Bloch-Like States in a Surface-Wave Experiment M. Torres, J. P. Adrados, J. L. Aragn, P. Cobo, and S. Tehuacanero Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 114501 (2003) Published March 17, 2003 Figures
M. Torres/CSIC, Spain

Waves of order. Vibrating a fluid-filled pan with a specially prepared bottom creates quasiperiodic standing waves on the surface (above, false color). A wave pulse sent through this background sheds light on the mathematical description of an electron traversing a quasiperiodic crystal.

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