Local structure of amorphous Zr₇₀Pd₃₀ alloy studied by electron diffraction

The structures of melt-spun, and subsequently annealed, Zr₇₀Pd₁₀ alloys, which 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 analysis 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 reverse Monte Carlo simulations. In order to obtain the local atomic structures, the Voronoi-polyhedra analysis was performed. A considerable number of icosahedral clusters with Zr atoms in the center are present in the simulated structure of the as-quenched state, and the number of the clusters increases by annealing.