Which Inorganic Structures are the Most Complex?

The discovery of the diffraction of X‐rays on crystals opened up a new era in our understanding of nature, leading to a multitude of striking discoveries about the structures and functions of matter on the atomic and molecular scales. Over the last hundred years, about 150 000 of inorganic crystal s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2014-01, Vol.53 (3), p.654-661
Main Author: Krivovichev, Sergey V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atomic structure
Complexity
Crystal structure
crystallography
Crystals
Detectors
Information theory
inorganic structures
Molecular structure
Nanostructure
Order disorder
structural complexity
structural elucidation
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Summary:The discovery of the diffraction of X‐rays on crystals opened up a new era in our understanding of nature, leading to a multitude of striking discoveries about the structures and functions of matter on the atomic and molecular scales. Over the last hundred years, about 150 000 of inorganic crystal structures have been elucidated and visualized. The advent of new technologies, such as area detectors and synchrotron radiation, led to the solution of structures of unprecedented complexity. However, the very notion of structural complexity of crystals still lacks an unambiguous quantitative definition. In this Minireview we use information theory to characterize complexity of inorganic structures in terms of their information content. Cause and complexity: Analysis of inorganic crystal structures using information‐based complexity measures indicates that structural complexity is generated by the assembly of nanoscale building blocks, modularity induced by complex chemical compositions, and the formation of superlattices as a result of local atomic ordering or displacive phase transitions.
ISSN:1433-7851
1521-3773
DOI:10.1002/anie.201304374