Laser light reveals unexpected twist in non-repeating tile pattern
Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science at The University of Tokyo shone laser light onto nanoscale structures built from the "Smith hat" tile and found diffraction behavior never seen before in conventional quasicrystals. The Smith hat tile, or monotile, answered the so-called Einstein problem: whether a single tile shape can cover a surface without the pattern ever repeating. The result was pinwheel-like diffraction patterns that revealed the structure's chiral nature. Senior author Masaya Notomi said the diffraction patterns themselves become chiral because the structure lacks mirror symmetry, a response he called fundamentally different from what shows up in conventional quasicrystalline materials. The findings appear in Nature Communications.
The aperiodic structure gives physicists and optical engineers a new way to bend and twist light into chiral patterns, something conventional quasicrystals do not do.
Source: A new twist on the Einstein problem reveals unexpected physics (iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp).
Written by the HappyGood desk from the primary source linked above and checked against it. Every story links its source. Corrections: [email protected].
More from the archive
- Bringing back the American chestnut: four approaches to a forest giant's return October 14, 2026
- 5 search and rescue teams, RCMP find stranded person in canyon above Penticton October 14, 2026
- Mackenzie Macdonald, 16, heads to the Youth Olympics for Australia in taekwondo October 13, 2026
- Parksville festival volunteers help deliver record $89,270 donation October 12, 2026
- Police fetch antivenom as three Blue Mountains rescues unfold in a day October 12, 2026