Stability and compression behaviour of icosahedral Zn–mg–Y quasicrystal under high pressures up to 70 GPa

Abstract

Abstract The stability of an icosahedral Zn55Mg35Y10 quasicrystal has been investigated under uniaxial high pressures up to 70 GPa by means of an in-situ angle-dispersive X-ray powder diffraction method using synchrotron radiation and diamond anvil cell. The icosahedral structure of the Zn55Mg35Y10 quasicrystal is found to be essentially stable under high pressures up to 70 GPa. It is found that no anisotropy of the pressure dependence of d/d 0 can be distinguished for each index, indicating isotropic compression of the quasicrystal. The zero-pressure bulk modulus and its pressure derivative are calculated to be 73 ± 1 GPa and B'0 = 3.6 ± 0.1 respectively. This indicates that the icosahedral Zn55Mg35Y10 quasicrystal as well as the icosahedral Al60Li30Cu10 quasicrystal, both of which are of Zn–Mg–Al type, is more compressible than icosahedral Al–transition metal type quasicrystals reported so far. The sample recovered from 70 GPa is essentially of quasicrystal structure and estimated to have about 0.73% re...