Jump to content

Kagome lattice

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 70.247.173.254 (talk) at 00:15, 23 July 2012 (aggregate comments about etymology). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

2d kagome lattice
Japanese basket showing the kagome pattern

A kagome lattice is an arrangement of laths composed of interlaced triangles such that each point where two laths cross has four neighboring points. Although called a lattice, it is more closely related to the trihexagonal tiling than to a mathematical lattice.

Some minerals, namely jarosites and herbertsmithite, contain layers with kagome lattice arrangement of atoms in their crystal structure. These minerals display novel physical properties connected with geometrically frustrated magnetism. The term is much in use nowadays in the scientific literature, especially by theorists studying the magnetic properties of a theoretical kagome lattice in two or three dimensions.

Etymology

The term was first coined by Japanese physicist Kōji Fushimi, who was working with Ichirō Shōji. The first paper[1] on the subject appeared in 1951. There is an article [2] in Physics Today about all this.

Its name derives from two separate Japanese words, meaning the pattern of holes ("me", literally "eyes") in a basket ("kago"). There has been some debate[citation needed] about the proper way to write this term. Lately, it is understood[according to whom?] that it is not strictly a Japanese word in itself and it is not the name of a person.[citation needed] Hence, it is proper for kagome to be written in roman font, not italic (foreign words), with a lower-case k, and without an unnecessary (pronunciation) acute accent on the last e.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ "I. Syôzi, Prog. Theor. Phys. 6, 306 (1951)".
  2. ^ "Physics Today article on the word kagome".