Abstract
By means of atomic-resolution high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy, we found three types of giant approximants of decagonal quasicrystal in Al-Cr-Fe-Si alloys, where each type contains several structural variants possessing the same lattice parameters but different crystal structures. The projected structures of these approximants along the pseudo-tenfold direction were described using substructural blocks. Furthermore, the structural relationship and the plane crystallographic groups in the (a, c) plan of these structural variants was also discussed. The diversity of quasicrystal approximants with the same lattice parameters was shown to be closely related to the variety of shield-like tiles and their tiling patterns.
Highlights
As one kind of structurally complex alloy phases, quasicrystal approximants have triggered wide interest owing to the challenge in solving their complex crystal structures and their possibly exceptional properties[1,2,3]
Three additional kinds of shield-like tile (SLT) structural blocks were observed in the Al-Cr-Fe-Si system in this report besides that adopted previously[34,36]
The different SLTs were renamed as SLT-1, SLT-2, SLT-3, and SLT-4 to distinguish between them (Fig. 2)
Summary
As one kind of structurally complex alloy phases, quasicrystal approximants have triggered wide interest owing to the challenge in solving their complex crystal structures and their possibly exceptional properties[1,2,3]. The approximants with different lattice parameters may consist of the same structural blocks, for example, the H tile for (1/0, 2/1) and (1/1, 1/1) approximants[27,28].
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