Self-assembly of a space-tessellating structure in the binary system of hard tetrahedra and octahedra.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27387490.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1039/c6sm01180b.
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Abstract
We report the formation of a binary crystal of hard polyhedra due solely to entropic forces. Although the alternating arrangement of octahedra and tetrahedra is a known space-tessellation, it had not previously been observed in self-assembly simulations. Both known one-component phases - the dodecagonal quasicrystal of tetrahedra and the densest-packing of octahedra in the Minkowski lattice - are found to coexist with the binary phase. Apart from an alternative, monoclinic packing of octahedra, no additional crystalline phases were observed.