Made to order? Structural order and disorder in solid materials on the mesoscale

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How can one quantify degrees of order between crystalline solids and their amorphous counterparts? Changes to structural periodicity can have a dramatic influence on a material's physical properties and reactivity, and it can offer valuable insights into material formation pathways in many geogenic and biogenic materials. Nevertheless, disorder in non-glassy solids is extremely understudied. If we can quantify order at different length scales, can the kind of disorder in a material tell us how it formed or evolved over time? Can we also use this knowledge to tailor material production toward a specified degree of disorder, thereby controlling physical properties? These knowledge gaps inspire my research program that seeks transformative links between the synthesis, structure and physical properties of disordered solid materials.