Study of an Order-Disorder Phase Transition on an Atomic Scale: The Example of Decagonal Al-Ni-Co Quasicrystals

摘要

In the present paper we succeeded in studying structural phase transitions from an atomistic point of view by positron annihilation Doppler broadening. This differs and is complementary to conventionally used diffraction experiments with large coherence lengths. In the exemplary case of the 1140 K order-disorder transition in decagonal Al_(71.5)Ni_(14)Co_(14.5) quasicrystals the importance of this atomistic approach and its wide scope of application is demonstrated.