Structural Diversity in Condensed Matter: A General Characterization of Crystals, Amorphous Solids and the Structures Between
Materials Science
2024-08-16 v1 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Soft Condensed Matter
Abstract
A definition of structural diversity, adapted from the biodiversity literature, is introduced to provide a general characterization of structures of condensed matter. Using the Favored Local Structure (FLS) lattice model as a testbed, the diversity measure is found to effectively filter extrinsic noise and to provide a useful differentiation between crystal and amorphous structures. We identify an interesting class of structures intermediate between crystals and glasses that are characterised by a complex combination of short-range ordering and long-range disorder. We demonstrate how the diversity can be used as an order parameter to organise various scenarios by structure change in response to increasing diversity.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2408.08154,
title = {Structural Diversity in Condensed Matter: A General Characterization of Crystals, Amorphous Solids and the Structures Between},
author = {Yueran Wang and Peter Harrowell},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.08154},
year = {2024}
}