Chemistry Labs

Photo credit: Phillip Westcott, NIST, 1985 — Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

Dan Shechtman

born 1941 · Israel · Contemporary

Nobel Chemistry 2011

Israeli materials scientist who discovered quasicrystals — ordered solids with 'forbidden' fivefold symmetry — forcing crystallography to redefine what a crystal is.

Nobel Prize work

In 1982 his electron diffraction pattern of a rapidly cooled Al–Mn alloy showed tenfold symmetry, impossible for any periodic crystal. Despite ridicule, he proved the existence of quasicrystals — aperiodic yet perfectly ordered structures — found later in many alloys and even meteorites, with unusual hardness and low friction.

Fields

Inorganic chemistryMaterials chemistry

Related topics

Crystal structures, X-ray diffraction

A crystal is periodic order on the atomic scale. X-rays scattered by that periodic array interfere constructively only in specific directions, turning a diffraction pattern into evidence about the unit cell and atomic arrangement.

Alloys, chemical metallurgy

Explain how alloy composition, phases and processing determine properties, and connect extraction and refining reactions to thermodynamics and material selection.

Chemists in the same field

M. Stanley Whittingham (1941)Harold Kroto (1939)Louis E. Brus (1943)Richard E. Smalley (1943)Richard Robson (1937)Aleksey Yekimov (1945)