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Aperiodic crystals (also named incommensurate phases) lack three-dimensional (3-D) translational
symmetry and thus lattice periodicity, while they are still long-range ordered. Aperiodic materials cannot be described by any of the 230 space groups; however, they show another type of long-range ordering. The aperiodic crystals can be categorized by three main classes [1]:
i) Incommensurate modulated structures,
ii) Incommensurate composite crystals,
iii) Quasicrystals.
All aperiodic materials present a discrete diffraction pattern and can be described as a 3-D atomic feature of a n-dimensional (n-D) (n > 3) periodic structure.
[1] Van Smaalen, S. (2007). Incommensurate Crystallography, Oxford University Press,
Oxford.
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