This book comprises an introductory lecture outlining the basic concepts and challenges in the field. This is followed by a collection of reprinted articles which are important in understanding the subject. The book will focus mainly on mathematical and physical foundations of the subject rather than experimental progress. By concentrating on theoretical topics, this volume has long-lasting as well as immediate value to physicists, crystallographers, metallurgists and mathematicians. Request Inspection Copy

In 1984 physicists discovered a monster in the world of crystallography, a structure that appeared to contain five-fold symmetry axes, which cannot exist in strictly periodic structures. Such quasi-periodic structures became known as quasicrystals. A previously formulated theory in terms of higher dimensional space groups was applied to them and new alloy phases were prepared which exhibited the properties expected from this model more closely. Thus many of the early controversies were dissolved. In 2011, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Dan Shechtman for the discovery of quasicrystals. This primer provides a descriptive approach to the subject for those coming to it for the first time. The various practical, experimental, and theoretical topics are dealt with in an accessible style. The book is completed by problem sets and there is a computer program that generates a Penrose lattice.

This book is the collection of most of the written versions of the Courses given at the Winter School "Beyond Quasicrystals" in Les Houches (March 7-18, 1994). The School gathered lecturers and participants from all over the world and was prepared in the spirit of a general effort to promote theoretical and experimental interdisciplinary communication between mathematicians, theoretical and experimental physicists on the topic of the nature of geometric order in solids beyond standard periodicity and quasi periodicity. The overall structure of the book reflects the wish of the editors to pose this fundamental question of geometric order in solids from both the experimental and theoretical point of view. The first part is devoted more specifically to quasicrystals. These materials were the common starting point of most of the audience and present a first concrete example of a non-trivial geometric order. We chose to focus on a few fundamental aspects of quasicrystals related to hidden symmetries in solids which are not easily found in standard textbooks on the topic, not to reach an exhaustive survey which is already available elsewhere.

These proceedings cover topics related to Quasicrystals, including tiling descriptions, high dimensional crystallography, structure studies, metallurgy and phase diagrams, and also properties with special emphasis on dynamics, electronic and mechanical behaviour. For the first time, materials made of metals only that behave as insulators are presented. For the first time also application focused research and processing of Quasicrystalline materials are addressed.Invited speakers: J Friedel, D Shechtman, M Baake, D Basov, C Berger, M de Boissieu, T Fujiwara, S Khanna, Y Meyer, S J Poon, C Sire, H Trebin, A P Tsai, M Widdom, M Wollgarten, Z Zhang.

A decade has passed since the Asian crisis of 1997-1998 which decimated many of the regional economies. While the crisis itself led to severe economic and political consequences, its primary cause was an inappropriate mix of policies, as regional economies attempted to simultaneously maintain fairly rigid exchange rates (soft US dollar pegs) and monetary policy autonomy in the presence of large-scale capital outflows. The chapters in this volume focus on selected exchange rate, monetary and financial issues and policies that are of contemporary relevance and importance to Asia, including choice of exchange rate regimes, causes and consequences of reserve accumulation, international capital flows, macroeconomic synchronization, and regional monetary and financial cooperation.

Quasicrystals: The State of the Art has proven to be a useful introduction to quasicrystals for mathematicians, physicists, materials scientists, and students. The original intent was for the book to be a progress report on recent developments in the field. However, the authors took care to adopt a broad, pedagogical approach focusing on points of lasting value. Many subtle and beautiful aspects of quasicrystals are explained in this book (and nowhere else) in a way that is useful for both the expert and the student. In this second edition, some authors have appended short notes updating their essays. Two new chapters have been added. Chapter 16, by Goldman and Thiel, reviews the experimental progress since the first edition (1991) in making quasicrystals, determining their structure, and finding applications. In Chapter 17, Steinhardt discusses the quasi-unit cell picture, a promising, new approach for describing the structure and growth of quasicrystals in terms of a single, repeating, overlapping cluster of atoms.

This interdisciplinary work on condensed matter physics, the continuum mechanics of novel materials, and partial differential equations, discusses the mathematical theory of elasticity and hydrodynamics of quasicrystals, as well as its applications. By establishing new partial differential equations of higher order and their solutions under complicated boundary value and initial value conditions, the theories developed here dramatically simplify the solution of complex elasticity problems. Comprehensive and detailed mathematical derivations guide readers through the work. By combining theoretical analysis and experimental data, mathematical studies and practical applications, readers will gain a systematic, comprehensive and in-depth understanding of condensed matter physics, new continuum mechanics and applied mathematics. This new edition covers the latest developments in quasicrystal studies. In particular, it pays special attention to the hydrodynamics, soft-matter quasicrystals, and the Poisson bracket method and its application in deriving hydrodynamic equations. These new sections make the book an even more useful and comprehensive reference guide for researchers working in Condensed Matter Physics, Chemistry and Materials Science.

This book is a collection of part of the written versions of the Physics Courses given at the Winter School "Order, Chance and Risk: Aperiodic Phenomena from Solid State to Finance" held at the Les Houches Center for Physics, between February 23 and March 6, 1998. The School gathered lecturers and participants from all over the world. On a thematic level, the content of the school can be viewed both as a continuation (aperiodic phenomena in solid state physics) and an extension (mathematical aspects of fmance and economy) of the previous "Beyond Quasicrystals", also held at Les Houches, March 7-18 1994 and published in the same ·series. One of its important goals was to promote in-depth concrete scientific exchanges between theoretical physicists, experimental physicists and mathematicians on the one hand, and on the other hand practitioners of the economico-fmancial sphere and specialists of financial mathematics. Therefore, besides the mathematical tools and concepts at work in theoretical descriptions, relevant experimental data were also presented together with methods allowing their interpretation. As a result of this choice, the School was stimulated by experimentalists and fmancial market operators who joined the theoretical physicists and mathematicians at the conference. The present volume deals with the theoretical and experimental studies on aperiodic solids with long range order, incommensurate phases, quasicrystals, glasses, and more complex systems (fractal, chaotic), while a second volume to appear in the same series is devoted to the finance and economy facet.

This review volume provides the most up-to-date and authoritative description of research on icosahedral solids, which has advanced rapidly since the discovery of these unique materials in 1984. The present book, intended as a companion volume to the reprint volume on The Physics of Quasicrystals edited by P Steinhardt and S Ostlund, will be invaluable to graduate students and workers in the field as a comprehensive reference. Scientists in related fields can use it as a readable introduction to the important current problems in quasicrystals. The chapters have been written by many of the most prominent theorists and experimentalists on quasicrystals, both physicists and materials scientists, from around the world. Especially exciting are the details of the recent discovery of “perfect quasi-crystals”, new materials which promise to be an ideal form of quasiperiodic matter with little or no disorder. Other topics include: electron, X-ray and neutron quasi-crystallography, scanning tunneling microscopy studies, electronic transport experiments, quasicrystal faceting and statistical mechanics, growth rules and matching rules for quasicrystals, group theory and elasticity theory.

Rapid Solidification Processing of molten metals and alloys has proved to be a reliable route for producing new and advanced materials. The Chill-Block Melt Spin (CBMS) technique is important because its simplicity, flexibility and perfection. High quality materials can be produced with lower costs, as compared to other routes, by refining the microstructure and trapping the nucleated (new) metastable phases. Melt-spun ribbons subsequently produced can then be consolidated to produce billets and sheets that can be used in many industries especially high-tech industries such as aerospace and racing automobiles. This book contains several perspectives about CBMS technology and should be a useful review for undergraduate and post-graduate metallurgy students.