Atomic fractals in metallic glasses
Metallic glasses are very strong and elastic materials that appear with the naked eye to be identical to stainless steel. But metallic glasses differ from ordinary metals in that they are amorphous, lacking an orderly, crystalline atomic arrangement. This random distribution of atoms, which is the primary characteristic of all glass materials (such as windowpanes and tableware), gives metallic glasses unique mechanical properties but unpredictable internal structure. Researchers in the Caltech lab of Julia Greer, professor of materials science and mechanics in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, have shown that metallic glasses do have an atomic-level structure—if you zoom in closely enough—although it differs from the periodic lattices that characterize crystalline metals.