Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize Talk: Once upon a time in Kamchatka: The Search for Natural Quasicrystals

Twenty-five years ago, soon after the concept of quasicrystals was introduced\footnote{D. Levine and P.J. Steinhardt, PRL 53, 2477 (1984).} and the first examples were synthesized in the laboratory,\footnote{D. Shechtman, I. Blech, D. Gratias and J.W. Cahn, PRL 53, 1951 (1984).} the search for a naturally-forming quasicrystal began. For many years, the search was informal. However, beginning about a decade ago,\footnote{P.J. Lu, K. Deffeyes, P.J. Steinhardt, and N. Yao, PRL 87, \textbf{275507 (2001).}} a systematic search was developed that, through planning and much serendipity, led to the discovery this past year of a natural candidate embedded in a rock reported to have been found in a remote region on the northern Kamchatka peninsula.\footnote{L. Bindi, P.J. Steinhardt, N. Yao and P.J. Lu, Science 324, 1306 (2009).} The talk will describe the search for natural quasicrystals and the implications for physics and geology.