New directions and opportunities for symmetry-centric structural science

TL;DR

This paper explores the future of symmetry-centric structural science and highlights new opportunities in the field.

Contribution

The paper presents a review of past achievements and outlines new frontiers in symmetry-centric structural science.

Findings

The ISOTROPY Software Suite has been developed for characterizing phase transitions and structural distortions.

There are vast opportunities for future research in symmetry-centric structural science.

Abstract

The crystallographic research community has a strong tradition of building and leveraging shared infrastructure for doing high-impact science at the intersection of chemistry, biochemistry, physics, materials science, and geology. Though much has been done already, the opportunities that yet lay ahead are vast and exciting. We will review milestones from our journey in developing symmetry-centric data sources and computational tools for the characterization of phase transitions and structural distortions (publicly available via the ISOTROPY Software Suite) over the past 40 years, and will highlight some of the relatively uncharted frontiers in symmetry-centric structural science that now beckon to adventurous explorers.