Monday 12 August 2013

Q-Glasses Could Be a New Class of Solids

There may be more kinds of stuff than we thought. A team of researchers has reported possible evidence for a new category of solids, things that are neither pure glasses, crystals, nor even exotic quasicrystals. Something else.

"Very weird. Strangest material I ever saw," says materials physicist Lyle Levine of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The research team from NIST and Argonne National Laboratory has analyzed a solid alloy that they discovered in small discrete patches of a rapidly cooled mixture of aluminum, iron and silicon. 

The material appears to have none of the extended ordering of atoms found in crystals, which would make it a glass, except that it has a very defined composition and grows outward from "seeds"—things that glasses most assuredly do not do.
 
The odd microstructure of this aluminum-iron-silicon mixture is seen in this image. The round nodules are the q-glass, not crystalline but with a well-defined chemical composition. The spherical shape indicates that they grow from an initial seed. The nodules use up iron and silicon in the mixture until the surrounding concentration of aluminum gets high enough to start forming aluminum crystals, seen as long bright lines radiating from the nodules. (Color added for clarity.) (Credit: Bendersky/NIST)
Message from Bhagavath Geetha
  • Do not get over excited over happiness and do not get over depressed over sorrow.
  • Do not get over bonded with anyone and anybody because it can lead to problems and sorrow.
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  • There are possibilities of success and failure in any endeavour. One cannot assure success always.
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  • People may say good and also they may say bad. Approach them with stabilised mind.
  • Take anything after scientifically, logically and rationally analysing them.
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  • First change ourselves and then try to change others.
  • We are all instruments /tools in the hands of the nature for performing the duty. So do not think that I am doing the duty. Think that I am an instrument to do the duty.
  • Results of action may not be sweet always. Accept what ever may be the result.
  • Follow the path of great scholars who guided the world. Listen their messages.
  • Results and rewards will come and go but stick to your duty with devotion, dedication and sincerity.