Correlation of atomic packing with the boson peak in amorphous alloys
- State Key Laboratory for Geomechanics and Deep Underground Engineering, School of Mechanics and Civil Engineering, School of Sciences, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116 (China)
- State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083 (China)
- Department of Physics, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27109 (United States)
- Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo 315201 (China)
Boson peaks (BP) have been observed from phonon specific heats in 10 studied amorphous alloys. Two Einstein-type vibration modes were proposed in this work and all data can be fitted well. By measuring and analyzing local atomic structures of studied amorphous alloys and 56 reported amorphous alloys, it is found that (a) the BP originates from local harmonic vibration modes associated with the lengths of short-range order (SRO) and medium-range order (MRO) in amorphous alloys, and (b) the atomic packing in amorphous alloys follows a universal scaling law, i.e., the ratios of SRO and MRO lengths to solvent atomic diameter are 3 and 7, respectively, which exact match with length ratios of BP vibration frequencies to Debye frequency for the studied amorphous alloys. This finding provides a new perspective for atomic packing in amorphous materials, and has significant implications for quantitative description of the local atomic orders and understanding the structure-property relationship.
- OSTI ID:
- 22305697
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 116, Issue 12; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-8979
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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