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A medium-range structure motif linking amorphous and crystalline states

Journal Article · · Nature Materials
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [5];  [5];  [6];  [5];  [5];  [7];  [8];  [5];  [9];  [8];  [10];  [11]
  1. Nanjing Univ. of Technology (China); City Univ. of Hong Kong (China)
  2. Nanjing Univ. of Aeronautics and Astronautics (China)
  3. City Univ. of Hong Kong, Dongguan (China)
  4. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
  5. Nanjing Univ. of Technology (China)
  6. Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
  7. Nanjing Univ. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing (China)
  8. City Univ. of Hong Kong (China)
  9. Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong (China)
  10. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
  11. City Univ. of Hong Kong (China); City Univ. of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (China)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Amorphous materials have no long-range order, but there are ordered structures at short range (2–5 Å), medium range (5–20 Å) and even longer length scales. While regular and semiregular polyhedra are often found as short-range ordering in amorphous materials, the nature of medium-range order has remained elusive. Consequently, it is difficult to determine whether there exists any structural link at medium range or longer length scales between the amorphous material and its crystalline counterparts. Moreover, an amorphous material often crystallizes into a phase of different composition, with very different underlying structural building blocks, further compounding the issue. Here, we capture an intermediate crystalline cubic phase in a Pd-Ni-P amorphous alloy and reveal the structure of the medium-range order, a six-membered tricapped trigonal prism cluster (6M-TTP) with a length scale of 12.5 Å. We find that the 6M-TTP can pack periodically to several tens of nanometres to form the cube phase. Our experimental observations provide evidence of a structural link between the amorphous and crystalline phases in a Pd-Ni-P alloy at the medium-range length scale and suggest that it is the connectivity of the 6M-TTP clusters that distinguishes the crystalline and amorphous phases. These findings will shed light on the structure of amorphous materials at extended length scales beyond that of short-range order.
Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); National Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1827410
Journal Information:
Nature Materials, Journal Name: Nature Materials Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 20; ISSN 1476-1122
Publisher:
Springer Nature - Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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36 MATERIALS SCIENCE