Quantitative crystal structure descriptors from multiplicative congruential generators.

Special types of number-theoretic relations, termed multiplicative congruential generators (MCGs), exhibit an intrinsic sublattice structure. This has considerable implications within the crystallographic realm, namely for the coordinate description of crystal structures for which MCGs allow for a concise way of encoding the numerical structural information. Thus, a conceptual framework is established, with some focus on layered superstructures, which proposes the use of MCGs as a tool for the quantitative description of crystal structures. The multiplicative congruential method eventually affords an algorithmic generation of three-dimensional crystal structures with a near-uniform distribution of atoms, whereas a linearization procedure facilitates their combinatorial enumeration and classification. The outlook for homometric structures and dual-space crystallography is given. Some generalizations and extensions are formulated in addition, revealing the connections of MCGs with geometric algebra, discrete dynamical systems (iterative maps), as well as certain quasicrystal approximants.