X-RAY AND NEUTRON-DIFFRACTION STUDIES OF THE AMORPHOUS ZRPD ALLOYS

X-ray and neutron diffraction measurements have been made on amorphous ZrPd samples prepared by three different techniques, fast quenching ( FQ) from the melt, mechanical alloying (MA) and mechanical milling (MM ). An important feature of our samples is the small differences betwee n the weighting factors for the partial structure factors (PSFs) and t he pair density functions for both X-ray and neutron radiations. This was exploited to investigate the effect of the preparation method on t he final structure of these samples. The results showed that the struc ture factors S(Q) and the reduced radial distribution functions G(r) o f these samples prepared by different methods are similar and independ ent of the way used for producing them. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.