Topological signatures and stability of hexagonal close packing and Barlow stackings
Georg Osang, Herbert Edelsbrunner, Mohammad Saadatfar · Soft Matter · 2021
-fold covers that unambiguously distinguishes between these patterns. Moreover, our approach provides topological evidence that the FCC motif is the more stable of the two in the context of evolving experimental sphere packings during the transition from disordered to an ordered state. We conclude that our approach can be generalised to distinguish between various Barlow stackings manifested in minerals and metals.