A patchy-particle 3-dimensional octagonal quasicrystal

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel 3D octagonal quasicrystal design based on patchy particles, demonstrating its assembly through simulations and proposing potential experimental realizations with DNA origami or proteins.

Contribution

It introduces a new 3D octagonal quasicrystal model derived from 2D tilings and shows how it can be assembled from patchy particles, including simplified one-component systems.

Findings

A binary system of 8- and 5-patch particles assembles into a 3D octagonal quasicrystal.

A one-component system of 5-patch particles also forms an essentially identical quasicrystal.

A one-component system of 8-patch particles forms a crystalline domain structure with approximate eight-fold order.

Abstract

We devise an ideal 3-dimensional octagonal quasicrystal that is based upon the 2-dimensional Ammann-Beenker tiling and that is potentially suitable for realization with patchy particles. Based on an analysis of its local environments we design a binary system of 8- and 5-patch particles that in simulations assembles into a 3-dimensional octagonal quasicrystal. The local structure is subtly different from the original ideal quasicrystal possessing a narrower coordination-number distribution; in fact, the 8-patch particles are not needed and a one-component system of the 5-patch particles assembles into an essentially identical octagonal quasicrystal. We also consider a one-component system of the 8-patch particles; this assembles into a cluster with a number of crystalline domains, but which, because of the coherent boundaries between the crystallites, has approximate eight-fold order. We envisage that these systems could be realized using DNA origami or protein design.