Crystallography of quasi-crystals

Abstract

The symmetry of quasi-crystals, a class of materials that has recently aroused interest, is discussed. It is shown that a quasi-crystal is a special case of an incommensurate crystal phase and that it can be described by a space group in more than three dimensions. A number of relevant three-dimensional quasi-crystals is discussed, in particular dihedral and icosahedral structures. The symmetry considerations are also applied to the two-dimensional Penrose patterns.