Thermal transport properties of decagonal quasicrystals and their approximants

Abstract

Transport properties (thermal conductivity, electrical resistivity and thermopower) of decagonal quasicrystal d-AlCoNi, and approximant phases Y-AlCoNi, o-Al 13 Co 4 , m-Al 13 Fe 4 , mAl 13 (Fe,Ni) 4 and T-AlMnFe have been reviewed. Among all presented alloys the stacking direction (periodic for decagonal quasicrystals) is the most conductive one for the charge and heat transport, and the in/out-of-plane anisotropy is much larger than the in-plane anisotropy. There is a strong relationship between periodicity length along stacking direction and anisotropy of transport properties in both quasicrystals and their approximants suggesting a decrease of the anisotropy with increasing number of stacking layers.