Metallic glass: A crystal at heart
Menlo Park, CA.--Glass, by definition, is amorphous; its atoms lack order and are arranged every which way. But when scientists squeezed tiny samples of a metallic glass under high pressure, they got a surprise: The atoms lined up in a regular pattern to form a single crystal.
It's the first time researchers have glimpsed this hidden property in a glass. The discovery, reported June 17th in Science, offers a new window into the atomic structure and behavior of metallic glasses, which have been used for decades in products such as anti-theft tags and power transformers ...





