Local structure of supercooled liquid Ga90In10 alloy

Abstract

The local structure of liquid and supercooled liquid Ga90In10 alloy was studied by the X-ray absorption fine-structure (XAFS), X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and the ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulation. The ab initio FEFF8 code was applied to simulate the In k-edge X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectrum of the melt. The local atomic arrangement models have been obtained. The results indicate that the structural evolution from the liquid to supercooled liquid Ga90In10 alloy is mainly caused by the change of the In atom local structure. As the temperature decreases, the nearest neighbor coordination number decreases and the nearest neighbor interatomic distance increases. The nearest neighbor coordination number around In atom decreases from 13 to 12, and there is obvious Ga aggregation under the undercooled condition.