Local structure of amorphous Zr70Pd30 alloy studied by electron diffraction

The structures of melt-spun, and subsequently annealed, Zr70Pd30 alloys, wh ich form a nanosized icosahedral quasicrystalline phase during the primary crystallization of the amorphous phase, have been investigated by means of electron-diffraction pair-distribution-function (PDF) analysis. The PDF ana lysis for this alloy was performed by precise measurements of elastic halo- electron-diffraction intensities. Possible structure models for as-quenched and annealed amorphous structures were constructed with the help of revers e Monte Carlo simulations. In order to obtain the local atomic structures, the Voronoi-polyhedra analysis was performed. A considerable number of icos ahedral clusters with Zr atoms in the center are present in the simulated s tructure of the as-quenched state, and the number of the clusters increases by annealing. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.