Twelvefold symmetric quasicrystallography from the lattices F4, B6 and E6

Nazife O. Koca*, Mehmet Koca, Ramazan Koc

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

One possible way to obtain the quasicrystallographic structure is the projection of the higher-dimensional lattice into two- or three-dimensional subspaces. Here a general technique applicable to any higher-dimensional lattice is introduced. The Coxeter number and the integers of the Coxeter exponents of a Coxeter-Weyl group play a crucial role in determining the plane onto which the lattice is to be projected. The quasicrystal structures display the dihedral symmetry of order twice that of the Coxeter number. The eigenvectors and the corresponding eigenvalues of the Cartan matrix are used to determine the set of orthonormal vectors in n-dimensional Euclidean space which lead to suitable choices for the projection subspaces. The maximal dihedral subgroup of the Coxeter-Weyl group is identified to determine the symmetry of the quasicrystal structure. Examples are given for 12-fold symmetric quasicrystal structures obtained by projecting the higher-dimensional lattices determined by the affine Coxeter-Weyl groups Wa(F4), Wa(B6) and Wa(E6). These groups share the same Coxeter number h = 12 with different Coxeter exponents. The dihedral subgroup D12 of the Coxeter groups can be obtained by defining two generators R1 and R2 as the products of generators of the Coxeter-Weyl groups. The reflection generators R1 and R2 operate in the Coxeter planes where the Coxeter element R1R2 of the Coxeter-Weyl group represents the rotation of order 12. The canonical (strip, equivalently, cut-and-project technique) projections of the lattices determine the nature of the quasicrystallographic structures with 12-fold symmetry as well as the crystallographic structures with fourfold and sixfold symmetry. It is noted that the quasicrystal structures obtained from the lattices Wa(F4) and Wa(B6) are compatible with some experimental results.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)605-615
Number of pages11
JournalActa Crystallographica Section A: Foundations and Advances
Volume70
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 1 2014

Keywords

  • Coxeter-Weyl groups
  • cut-and-project technique
  • lattices
  • quasicrystallography
  • strip projection

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Structural Biology
  • Biochemistry
  • General Materials Science
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
  • Inorganic Chemistry

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