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In condensed matter physics and materials science, an amorphous solid (or non-crystalline solid) is a solid that lacks the long-range order that is characteristic of a crystal. The terms " glass " and "glassy solid" are sometimes used synonymously with amorphous solid; however, these terms refer specifically to amorphous materials that undergo ...
A nanocrystalline (NC) material is a polycrystalline material with a crystallite size of only a few nanometers.These materials fill the gap between amorphous materials without any long range order and conventional coarse-grained materials.
For example, diamond and graphite are two crystalline forms of carbon, while amorphous carbon is a noncrystalline form. Polymorphs, despite having the same atoms, may have very different properties. For example, diamond is the hardest substance known, while graphite is so soft that it is used as a lubricant.
Most metals are crystalline in their solid state, which means they have a highly ordered arrangement of atoms. Amorphous metals are non-crystalline, and have a glass-like structure . But unlike common glasses, such as window glass, which are typically electrical insulators , amorphous metals have good electrical conductivity and can show ...
Crystalline polymers are usually opaque because of light scattering on the numerous boundaries between the crystalline and amorphous regions. The density of such boundaries is lower in polymers with very low crystallinity (amorphous polymer) or very high degree of crystalline polymers, consequentially, the transparency is higher. [ 5 ]
As nc-Si has about the same bandgap as crystalline silicon, which is ~1.12 eV, it can be combined in thin layers with a-Si, creating a layered, multi-junction cell called a tandem cell. The top cell in a-Si absorbs the visible light and leaves the infrared part of the spectrum for the bottom cell in nanocrystalline Si.
The orientation of crystallites can be random with no preferred direction, called random texture, or directed, possibly due to growth and processing conditions.While the structure of a single crystal is highly ordered and its lattice is continuous and unbroken, amorphous materials, such as glass and many polymers, are non-crystalline and do not display any structures, as their constituents are ...
The structure of liquids, glasses and other non-crystalline solids is characterized by the absence of long-range order which defines crystalline materials. Liquids and amorphous solids do, however, possess a rich and varied array of short to medium range order, which originates from chemical bonding and related interactions.