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Updated: Jun 16, 2025

Methods of Ex Situ and In Situ Investigations of Structural Transformations: The Case of Crystallization of Metallic Glasses
Published on: June 7, 2018
Structural diversity in condensed matter: A general characterization of crystals, amorphous solids, and the
Yueran Wang1, Peter Harrowell1
1School of Chemistry, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
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 lattice model as a testbed, the diversity measure is found to effectively filter extrinsic noise and provide a useful differentiation between crystal and amorphous structures. We identify an interesting class of structures intermediate between crystals and glasses that are characterized 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 organize various scenarios by structure change in response to increasing diversity.
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