Short-range order of stable and undercooled liquid titanium

Abstract

This work presents investigations on the short-range order of stable and undercooled melts of Ti. In order to deeply undercool the melts, they are containerlessly processed under high purity conditions by application of the electromagnetic levitation technique. This technique is combined with neutron scattering at the Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France, in order to determine the structure factors of the liquids as a function of the temperature. The experimental data are well described if an icosahedral short-range order is assumed to prevail in the melt, which consists of larger polytetrahedral aggregates such as dodecahedral clusters.