Cultural revolution in whale songs

Abstract

All stable quasicrystals known so far are composed of at least three metallic elements1, 2, 3, 4. Sixteen years after the discovery of the quasicrystal5, we describe a stable binary quasicrystalline alloy in a cadmium–ytterbium (Cd–Yb) system. The structure of this alloy represents a new class of packing of 66-atom icosahedral clusters whose internal structure breaks the icosahedral symmetry. The binary quasicrystal offers a new opportunity to investigate the relation between thermodynamic stability and quasiperiodic structure, as well as providing a basis for the construction of crystallographic models.