Structure of an Al64Cu22Co14 decagonal quasicrystal studied by Cs-corrected STEM

Yi Yang; Yongjun Chen; Chuang Dong; Yanguo Wang; Xurong Wang; Hongrong Liu; Qibin Yang

doi:10.1016/j.micron.2021.103194

Structure of an Al₆₄Cu₂₂Co₁₄ decagonal quasicrystal studied by Cs-corrected STEM

Micron. 2022 Feb:153:103194. doi: 10.1016/j.micron.2021.103194. Epub 2021 Dec 7.

Authors

Yi Yang¹, Yongjun Chen², Chuang Dong³, Yanguo Wang⁴, Xurong Wang⁵, Hongrong Liu⁵, Qibin Yang⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, Hunan, 411105, China.
² School of Mechanical Engineering & Automation, University of Science and Technology Liaoning, Anshan, Liaoning, 114051, China.
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning, 116024, China.
⁴ Beijing Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
⁵ College of Physics and Information Science, Hunan Normal University, 36 Lushan Road, Changsha, Hunan, 410081, China.
⁶ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, Hunan, 411105, China. Electronic address: yqb@xtu.edu.cn.

PMID: 34896684
DOI: 10.1016/j.micron.2021.103194

Abstract

During the last several decades, since the discovery of a decagonal quasicrystal, a 2 nm cluster model has been widely accepted as its basic quasi-unit-cell (QUC). Instead of the traditional 2 nm QUC, a 3.2 nm QUC is proposed in this paper. The 3.2 nm QUC can fill all the blank areas. The 3.2 nm QUC consists of 251 atoms. The element type and position of each atom are determined using high-angle annular detector dark-field (HAADF) images taken along three projection directions, i.e., one along the ten-fold symmetry and the other two along the two-fold symmetry with an intersection angle of 18 degrees. The proposed model opens an avenue for further investigation of the aperiodic atomic structure of other quasicrystals.

Keywords: Decagonal quasicrystal; HAADF; STEM; Structure model.