Publication Date:
2008-11-15
Description:
A molecular network that exhibits critical correlations in the spatial order that is characteristic of a random, entropically stabilized, rhombus tiling is described. Specifically, we report a random tiling formed in a two-dimensional molecular network of p-terphenyl-3,5,3',5'-tetracarboxylic acid adsorbed on graphite. The network is stabilized by hexagonal junctions of three, four, five, or six molecules and may be mapped onto a rhombus tiling in which an ordered array of vertices is embedded within a nonperiodic framework with spatial fluctuations in a local order characteristic of an entropically stabilized phase. We identified a topological defect that can propagate through the network, giving rise to a local reordering of molecular tiles and thus to transitions between quasi-degenerate local minima of a complex energy landscape. We draw parallels between the molecular tiling and dynamically arrested systems, such as glasses.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Blunt, Matthew O -- Russell, James C -- Gimenez-Lopez, Maria Del Carmen -- Garrahan, Juan P -- Lin, Xiang -- Schroder, Martin -- Champness, Neil R -- Beton, Peter H -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2008 Nov 14;322(5904):1077-81. doi: 10.1126/science.1163338.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19008440" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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