Phason-Driven Diversity of Nucleation Pathways in Icosahedral Quasicrystals
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866911449618579456 |
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| author | Cui, Gang Zhang, Lei Zhang, Pingwen Shi, An-Chang Jiang, Kai |
| author_facet | Cui, Gang Zhang, Lei Zhang, Pingwen Shi, An-Chang Jiang, Kai |
| contents | The nucleation of quasicrystals remains a fundamental puzzle, primarily due to the absence of a periodic translational template. Here, we demonstrate that phasons - hidden degrees of freedom unique to quasiperiodic order - drive diverse nucleation pathways in icosahedral quasicrystals (IQCs). Combining a Landau free-energy model with the spring pair method, we compute distinct critical nuclei and their corresponding minimum energy paths. At low temperatures, a direct, symmetry-preserving pathway dominates. In contrast, higher temperatures promote a "symmetry detour" that reduces the nucleation barrier via a lower-symmetry critical nucleus. Remarkably, while the resulting bulk IQCs exhibit distinct real-space symmetries, they remain thermodynamically degenerate with identical diffraction patterns. We resolve this paradox within the high-dimensional projection framework, showing that phason shifts modulate real-space symmetry without altering bulk thermodynamics. Our findings establish phasons as the structural origin of pathway diversity, offering a new physical picture for the emergence of quasiperiodic order. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_13969 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Phason-Driven Diversity of Nucleation Pathways in Icosahedral Quasicrystals Cui, Gang Zhang, Lei Zhang, Pingwen Shi, An-Chang Jiang, Kai Soft Condensed Matter Computational Physics The nucleation of quasicrystals remains a fundamental puzzle, primarily due to the absence of a periodic translational template. Here, we demonstrate that phasons - hidden degrees of freedom unique to quasiperiodic order - drive diverse nucleation pathways in icosahedral quasicrystals (IQCs). Combining a Landau free-energy model with the spring pair method, we compute distinct critical nuclei and their corresponding minimum energy paths. At low temperatures, a direct, symmetry-preserving pathway dominates. In contrast, higher temperatures promote a "symmetry detour" that reduces the nucleation barrier via a lower-symmetry critical nucleus. Remarkably, while the resulting bulk IQCs exhibit distinct real-space symmetries, they remain thermodynamically degenerate with identical diffraction patterns. We resolve this paradox within the high-dimensional projection framework, showing that phason shifts modulate real-space symmetry without altering bulk thermodynamics. Our findings establish phasons as the structural origin of pathway diversity, offering a new physical picture for the emergence of quasiperiodic order. |
| title | Phason-Driven Diversity of Nucleation Pathways in Icosahedral Quasicrystals |
| topic | Soft Condensed Matter Computational Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.13969 |