Pressure-Induced Amorphization of R -Al ₅ Li ₃ Cu: A Structural Relation Among Amorphous Metals, Quasi-Crystals, and Curved Space

Abstract

A central question in the study of amorphous materials is the extent to which they are ordered. When the crystalline intermetallic R-Al(5)Li(3)Cu is compressed to 23.2 gigapascals at ambient temperature, an amorphous phase is produced whose order can be described as defects in a curved-space crystal. This result supports a structural relation between quasi-crystals and amorphous metals based on icosahedral ordering. This result also shows that a metallic crystal can be made amorphous by compression.

Memory effects in pressure induced amorphousAlPO4

“…The microscopic reasons behind this type of transformation are at present not yet well understood and are being actively investigated using various theoretical and computational modeling techniques [17][18][19][20][21]. Pressure induced amorphization has been found in insulators [1,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14], semiconductors [2,3,15], and metals [16]; it is therefore quite a general phenomenon. From the experimental side the effect is still somewhat controversial because it relies on the vanishing of xray or Raman peaks in the experimental spectra and it always can be argued that their disappearance is due to insufficient sensitivity.…”

“…This surprising behavior confirms the claims, based on birefringence measurements, of Kruger and Jeanloz [Science 249, 647 (1990)1. Our results also indicate that, even in the amorphous phase, AIPO4 remains elastically anisotropic.PACS numbers: 6l.50.Ks, 62.50.+p, 78.35,+c Since its relatively recent discovery [1], the phenomenon of pressure induced amorphization has received considerable attention [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. The microscopic reasons behind this type of transformation are at present not yet well understood and are being actively investigated using various theoretical and computational modeling techniques [17][18][19][20][21].…”

Size criterion for amorphization of molecular ionic solids

“…This phenomenon has now been observed for all classes on bonding. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] A central question in the study of these crystalline to noncrystalline transitions is ''What basic structural feature of a crystal dictates its tendency to amorphize upon compression?'' We address this question here for the case of A 2 BX 4 molecular ionic solids ͑Fig.…”

Deformation-induced localized solid-state amorphization in nanocrystalline nickel

“…Producing non-crystalline (or amorphous) structures in metallic materials has long been a focus for vast amount of theoretical and experimental investigations in materials science123456. There have been two routes for achieving amorphous structures in metallic materials: (i) “freezing” the dynamic disorder of liquid under extremely high cooling rate, i.e.…”