Single-component quasicrystalline nanocrystal superlattices through flexible polygon tiling rule

Abstract

Quantum dots line up as a quasicrystal Quasicrystals have rotational symmetry but no long-range order. Although several materials have quasicrystalline order, examples of quasicrystalline superlattices formed from different types of particles are rare. Nagaoka et al. discovered a type of 10-fold quasicrystalline superlattice formed from truncated tetrahedral quantum dots (see the Perspective by Wu and Sun). The order is driven by a “flexible polygon tiling rule,” which explains the unique arrangement of the quantum dots. Science , this issue p. 1396 ; see also p. 1354