Physicists have built a crystal out of an "einstein" tile — an elusive shape mathematicians spent years searching for — and found that it bends light in a way no ordinary crystal can.
In the new study, published July 29 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers arranged this never-repeating tile shape into a pattern of nanoscale holes. This structure, known as a photonic crystal, is designed to control the way light moves through it. When the team shined a laser at it, the crystal produced a swirling, pinwheel-shaped scattering pattern that responded differently depending on which direction the incoming light was spinning.
The tile solves what mathematicians call the "einstein problem," a decades-old puzzle asking whether a single shape could cover a flat surface endlessly without ever repeating its pattern. (The name is a pun on "ein stein," German for "one stone," not a reference to Albert Einstein).
In the 1970s, mathematician Read Entire Article
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