Quasicrystal
![Potential energy surface for silver depositing on an aluminium-palladium-manganese (Al-Pd-Mn) quasicrystal surface. Similar to Fig. 6 in Ref.[1]](/uploads/202501/19/Quasicrystal14344.jpg)
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![Atomic image of a micron-sized grain of the natural Al71Ni24Fe5 quasicrystal (shown in the inset) from a Khatyrka meteorite. The corresponding diffraction patterns reveal a ten-fold symmetry.[16]](/uploads/202501/19/Al71Ni24Fe5_TEM4344.jpg)
A quasiperiodic crystal, or quasicrystal, is a structure that is ordered but not periodic. A quasicrystalline pattern can continuously fill all available space, but it lacks translational symmetry. While crystals, according to the classical crystallographic restriction theorem, can possess only two, three, four, and six-fold rotational symmetries, the Bragg diffraction pattern of quasicrystals shows sharp peaks with other symmetry orders, for instance five-fold.