THE NATURE OF NANOSTRUCTURED CU-FE-O ALLOYS PRODUCED BY COPPER-STEEL SLIDING .1. EXPERIMENTAL-DATA

This part of the paper deals with the experimental study of the atomic and electronic structure of ultrafine Cu-Fe-O alloys produced by copp er-steel sliding. These alloys were found to consist of Cu crystallite s and a disordered intercrystalline phase which contains the major par t of Fe and O atoms. This phase may be represented as an aggregate of small Fe-O clusters arranged in a Cu host with aperiodic atomic struct ure. Oxygen in this system reveals an unusual property to interact wit h metal atoms without charge transfer from metal to oxygen atoms and w ithout forming typical oxide atomic and electronic configurations, i.e . without oxidation of metal in the traditional sense. This means that the nature of nanostructured Cu-Fe-O alloys differs from the usual po lycrystalline Cu-Fe-O alloys of the same composition.