Local Structural Order in Amorphous Semicondcutors

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Abstract
Noncrystalline condensed matter presents contemporary physics with a number of basic questions. Traditional solid‐state physics has emphasized the study of periodic systems, whose energy levels may be labeled by the wavevector. The concept of reciprocal space, or of allowed wavevector values, therefore provides a convenient and consistent framework for describing electronic, vibrational and magnetic properties of crystalline solids in terms of energy bands. In a nonperiodic system, the concept of a wavevector is not valid. The need for a fundamental concept that might be useful in the study of nonperiodic systems therefore forces us to focus attention on structural configurations in real space.