A One-Component Patchy-Particle Icosahedral Quasicrystal

Designing particles that are able to form icosahedral quasicrystals (IQCs) and that are as simple as possible is not only of fundamental interest but is also important to the potential realization of IQCs in materials other than metallic alloys. Here we introduce one-component patchy-particle systems that in simulations are able to form face-centered IQCs that are made up of interconnected icosahedra. The directional bonding of the particles facilitates the formation of a network of bonds with icosahedral orientational order and hence quasiperiodic positional order. The assembled quasicrystals have similar energies to periodic approximants but are entropically stabilized by phason disorder. Their long-range quasiperiodic order is confirmed by a higher-dimensional analysis. These materials, which are predicted to have an almost spherical photonic band gap, can potentially be realized via protein design and DNA origami particles.