Simple trick may be the solution to making a perfect crystal
Creating a perfect crystal sounds straightforward, but it's tricky. New research may have found the right recipe.
Creating a perfect crystal may be as simple as adding an extra turn to the rotating magnetic field used to assemble particles, according to new research. Magnetic particles interact with each other in ordered, repeating structures, but tiny biases in their interactions can make it difficult to form uniform crystalline materials.
Researchers at Rice University have developed a theoretical strategy for eliminating these biases. By rotating the magnetic field slightly more than a full 360-degree turn before reversing its direction, the team found that directional preferences can be eliminated, allowing particles to experience identical average interactions regardless of their orientation.
This discovery could help researchers design more uniform crystalline structures from microscopic particles, providing a new way to precisely tune the forces that govern magnetic self-assembly.
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