The pattern is from one of a new family of magnetic binary icosahedral quasicrystals discovered by researchers from Ames Laboratory carrying out studies at X-ray Science Division insertion device beamline 6-ID-D at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s APS at Argonne.
The superconducting undulator is a key technology in the upgrade of the APS, which “will increase the brightness of the APS high-energy (hard) x-ray beams. This will equip researchers for the groundbreaking discoveries and transformational innovations that create new products and industries and generate jobs.”
The quasicrystal study is the subject of a Nature Materials Letter entitled, “A family of binary magnetic icosahedral quasicrystals based on rare earths and cadmium,” Nat. Mater. 12, 714 (2013). DOI:10.1038/nmat3672; the subject of the Nature Materials News & Views article, “Quasicrystals: Model structures,” by Marc de Boissieu, which can be read here; and the APS science and research highlight found here.
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