Material engineers and scientists have long wanted to understand the atomic structures of amorphous solids such as glass, rubber and plastics more fully. Unlike the structures of crystalline materials ...

Glassy state: a new field theory describes amorphous materials such as glass beads. (Courtesy: iStock/schmidt-z) Many common materials such as glass, compacted sand and toothpaste have a solid’s ...

Researchers have developed a new method for understanding the structure organization of disordered materials fundamentally different from previous geometric approaches of ordered crystals. This ...

Anything made out of plastic or glass is known as an amorphous material. Unlike many materials that freeze into crystalline solids, the atoms and molecules in amorphous materials never stack together ...

Glass, rubber and plastics all belong to a class of matter called amorphous solids. And in spite of how common they are in our everyday lives, amorphous solids have long posed a challenge to ...

In a crystalline solid, the atoms form an ordered lattice. Crystalline solids respond elastically to small deformations: When the applied strain is removed, the macroscopic stress, as well as the ...

Glassy states represent a fascinating class of disordered materials in which atoms or molecules are frozen into non-crystalline arrangements. Their vibrational properties differ markedly from those of ...

AZoNano speaks to Dr. John Miao about his involvement in the breakthrough research that could rewrite our understanding of how substances are formed at an atomic level. Using an innovative atomic ...

(Nanowerk News) Many substances with different chemical and physical properties, from diamonds to graphite, are made up of carbon atoms. Amorphous forms of solid carbon do not have a fixed crystal ...

One of the most important things to know regarding fused silica and quartz is that they both primarily consist of silica, also known as silicon dioxide. Silica is the primary constituent of most types ...

For more than a century, an important class of matter -- the amorphous solid -- has eluded scientists' ability to depict nature at the level of atoms and molecules. Until now. A new study reports the ...