Material engineers and scientists have long wanted to understand the atomic structures of amorphous solids such as glass, rubber and plastics more fully. Unlike the structures of crystalline materials ...

In a crystalline solid, the atoms form an ordered lattice. Crystalline solids respond elastically to small deformations: When the applied strain is removed, the macroscopic stress, as well as the ...

For more than a century, an important class of matter -- the amorphous solid -- has eluded scientists' ability to depict nature at the level of atoms and molecules. Until now. A new study reports the ...