On 9 January 2015 the Jožef Stefan Institute and the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) signed an agreement on a common International Associated Laboratory (LIA). The main research themes of the new laboratory are quasicrystals and complex alloys, with the aim being to find answers to unsolved, fundamental questions: how and why does the complexity arise, what is the underlying mechanism for the promotion of complexity, is this mechanism unique and what is relation between the electronic and atomic structures of the crystal?
The LIA will not only contribute to a better understanding of the complexity in the development of some metallic alloys, which in a way is still at the beginning, but will also encourage physical metallurgy at the frontiers of knowledge related to the physics of solids and inorganic chemistry.