Roles of Quasiperiodicity and Local Environment in the Electronic Transport of the Icosahedral Quasicrystals in Al-Pd-TM (TM=Fe, Ru, Os) Systems

Abstract

In order to gain an insight into the roles of the local atomic environment and the long-range quasiperiodicity in the electronic transport of the icosahedral quasicrystal, a direct comparison of the electrical resistivity of icosahedral quasicrystals, (1/0, 1/0, 1/0) and (2/1, 2/1, 2/1) crystalline approximants in the Al–Pd–TM (TM=Fe, Ru, Os) ternary systems has been made on the basis of the same alloy system. The trend of the resistivity of 1/0-cubic approximants, which are the lowest order crystalline analogues to the icosahedral phase, already possesses a nonmetallic character, while the 2/1-cubic approximants exhibit quite similar behavior to that of the corresponding quasicrystals. The present result strongly suggests that the effect of the long-range quasiperiodicity beyond the lattice periodicity of 2/1-cubic approximant phase on the electronic transport is of less significance and the electronic transport of approximants and quasicrystals is mainly determined by the local atomic environment of a scale less than 2.0 nm.