Quasicrystal nucleation in an intermetallic glass-former

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the homogeneous nucleation and growth of a decagonal quasicrystalline seed in NiZr, revealing insights into the transition between glasses, crystals, and quasicrystals through high-speed electrostatic levitation experiments.

Contribution

It provides the first direct observation of quasicrystal nucleation in a glass-forming alloy and introduces a twin model linking quasicrystals with intermetallic structures.

Findings

Homogeneous nucleation of decagonal quasicrystals observed

Dendritic microstructure results from symmetry breaking of 2D quasicrystalline clusters

NiZr acts as a bridge between quasicrystals and twinned intermetallics

Abstract

The discovery of quasicrystals 30 years ago challenged our understanding of order at the atomic scale. While quasicrystals possess long-range orientational order they lack translation periodicity. Structurally complex, yet crystalline intermetallics and (bulk) metallic glasses represent competing states of condensed matter among metallic phases, including peculiarities like the q-glass. Considerable progress has been made in their structure elucidation and in identifying factors governing their formation; comparatively less is known about their interrelation. Moreover, studies bridging the spatial scales from atoms to the macroscale are scarce. Here we report on the homogeneous nucleation of a single quasicrystalline seed of decagonal symmetry and its continuous growth into a tenfold twinned dendritic microstructure. Electrostatic levitation was applied to undercool melts of glass-forming NiZr, observing single crystallization events with a high-speed camera; with a statistical evaluation of 200 consecutive thermal cycles suggesting homogeneous nucleation. The twinned dendritic microstructure, apparent in electron backscatter diffraction maps, results from the symmetry breaking of an essentially 2D decagonal quasicrystalline cluster. Conserving its long-range orientational order, our distortion-free twin model merges a common structure type for binary intermetallic compounds, with interatomic distances of alike atoms scaled by the golden ratio, and spiral growth resembling phyllotaxis. NiZr represents a missing link connecting quasicrystals and multiple twinned structures sheding light on intermediate states of order between glasses, crystals and their twins, and quasicrystals.