X-ray study of phason strain in Al-based quasicrystals

Abstract

X-ray powder diffraction spectra have been measured for melt-spun Al-Si–Mn, Al-Cu–Fe and Al-Li–Cu and Bridgman-grown Al-Li-Cu quasicrystals to investigate the phason strain frozen during the solidification process. For the melt-spun samples, most of the peaks have a shoulder or a tail which is attributed to the anisotropic linear phason strain. The peak shapes for the three melt-spun samples are essentially the same, which indicate that the same type of linear phason is quenched in these samples. In contrast, symmetric peak shapes without shoulders nor tails are seen for the Bridgman-grown Al-Li–Cu, indicating that it contains little linear phason strain.

Our findings are discussed with respect to the three linear phason models which can be derived by degradation of the symmetry from ideal icosahedral group m35 to its maximal subgroups 3m, m3 and 5m. Of these three, the model for 3m reproduces best the observed shapes and widths of the peaks.