DOI: 10.1088/0953-8984/24/49/495301

We propose that systems exhibiting compositional patterning at the nanoscale can be understood in terms of the ordering of minority motifs, caused by some constrained drive for uniformity. The idea is discussed with a two-dimensional binary lattice-gas model in which the dilution of the minority component is favoured. We find a  hierarchy of arrangements similar to the experimentally observed nano-chessboard and nano-diamond patterns, which are described as occupational modulated structures with two independent modulation wavevectors.