Direct observation of a local thermal vibration anomaly in a quasicrystal

Eiji Abe (), S. J. Pennycook and A. P. Tsai
Additional contact information
Eiji Abe: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
S. J. Pennycook: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
A. P. Tsai: National Institute for Materials Science and SORST, Japan Science and Technology Corporation

Nature, 2003, vol. 421, issue 6921, 347-350

Abstract: Abstract Quasicrystals have long-range order with symmetries that are incompatible with periodicity, and are often described with reference to a higher-dimensional analogue of a periodic lattice1,2,3. Within the context of this ‘hyperspace’ crystallography, lattice dynamics of quasicrystals can be described by a combination of lattice vibrations and atomic fluctuations—phonons and phasons1,4. However, it is difficult to see localized fluctuations in a real-space quasicrystal structure, and so the nature of phason-related fluctuations and their contribution to thermodynamic stability are still not fully understood. Here we use atomic-resolution annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy to map directly the change in thermal diffuse scattering intensity distribution in the quasicrystal, through in situ high-temperature observation of decagonal Al72Ni20Co8. We find that, at 1,100 K, a local anomaly of atomic vibrations becomes significant at specific atomic sites in the structure. The distribution of these localized vibrations is not random but well-correlated, with a quasiperiodic length scale of 2 nm. We are able to explain this feature by an anomalous temperature (Debye–Waller) factor for the Al atoms that sit at the phason-related sites defined within the framework of hyperspace crystallography. The present results therefore provide a direct observation of local thermal vibration anomalies in a solid.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01337 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:421:y:2003:i:6921:d:10.1038_nature01337

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature01337

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().