Somebody explain these dadburn quasi-crystals to me, I'm stumped

[old Grump]

Impossible crystals are 'from space'


The minerals were the first reported naturally-occurring quasicrystals


Examples of a crystal previously thought to be impossible in nature may have come from space, a study shows.

Quasicrystals break some of the rules of symmetry that apply to conventional crystalline structures. They also exhibit different physical and electrical properties.
In 2009, Luca Bindi, from the University of Florence, Italy, and his colleagues reported finding quasicrystals in mineral samples from the Koryak mountains in Russia's far east.

The mineral - an alloy of aluminium, copper, and iron - showed that quasicrystals could form and remain stable under natural conditions. But the natural process that created the structures remained an open question.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16393296

I first came across these last spring in one of my science magazines and its possible applications in computers but I cannot for the life of me figure out how they work or why they work or what they do when they work. The whole concept is making my brain hurt. Can anybody explain these dadburn things to me in plain simple English

[Kadmos]

The interesting thing about natural crystals is that they follow fairly strict mathematical patterns.

The patterns are essentially repeats on a pattern based on 2,3,4, or 6 folds...like you would fold paper to make a paper snowflake.

However, in the mid or late 1960's when they really started growing crystals in labs they found that they could make patterns that didn't fall in this category...like say a 5 pointed star.

These got labeled as quasiperiodic, as the pattern wasn't periodic in the same way natural crystals are...you can't make "folds" to make that shape, although there is still a pattern.

This is telling me that you went to high school long before 80's when this was in every geology text

As to what they "do" I don't have a clue...I suppose they look different and are interesting to people who study crystals

[old Grump]

My kids were in highschool in the 80s so yeah I predate that by a couple of decades

[mriddick]

When I was taking organic science in college most of the wow factor with crystals was in how they were built and if they allowed other minerals to to be inserted between or inside of the structure. If you think about it much of electronics come down to having two or more materials with differing properties interacting with each other, you can't get that on a smaller scale then this.

[Mark Ducati]

you can't get that on a smaller scale then this.

This might be on Snopes, I haven't checked... maybe an urban legend. But the story was, some guy was trying to get with the top IBM execs for a meeting to show them something. After months of persistence, he was finally granted a meeting... he put one slide up on the screen that simply read "IBM". So? Each letter was made of tiny dots, individual atoms and each letter was a different element. He basically made an electrical circuit on the atomic level.

[stinker]

I first came across these last spring in one of my science magazines and its possible applications in computers but I cannot for the life of me figure out how they work or why they work or what they do when they work.

The mineral - an alloy of aluminium, copper, and iron

Aluminum and iron crystalized is a sapphire. Not sure how the copper dopant affects the structure but you'll probably still be in the same application area as a corundum family crystal if the aluminum is the dominant material, so possibly some sort of laser application depending on the crystals translucence is my first thought.