Washington, DC— You’ve heard the expression form follows function? In materials science, function follows form.
New research by Carnegie’s Olivier Gagné and collaborator Frank Hawthorne of the University of Manitoba categorizes the causes of structural asymmetry, some surprising, which underpin useful properties of crystals, including ferroelectricity, photoluminescence, and photovoltaic ability. Their findings are published this week as a lead article in the International Union of Crystallography Journal.
“Understanding how different bond arrangements convey various useful attributes is central to the materials sciences” explained