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. 2003 Mar 14;299(5613):1716-8.
doi: 10.1126/science.1081160.

Grain boundary scars and spherical crystallography

A R Bausch  1 , M J Bowick, A Cacciuto, A D Dinsmore, M F Hsu, D R Nelson, M G Nikolaides, A Travesset, D A Weitz
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Grain boundary scars and spherical crystallography

A R Bausch et al. Science. .

Abstract

We describe experimental investigations of the structure of two-dimensional spherical crystals. The crystals, formed by beads self-assembled on water droplets in oil, serve as model systems for exploring very general theories about the minimum-energy configurations of particles with arbitrary repulsive interactions on curved surfaces. Above a critical system size we find that crystals develop distinctive high-angle grain boundaries, or scars, not found in planar crystals. The number of excess defects in a scar is shown to grow linearly with the dimensionless system size. The observed slope is expected to be universal, independent of the microscopic potential.

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