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Science 9 April 1993:
Vol. 260. no. 5105, pp. 202 - 204
DOI: 10.1126/science.260.5105.202
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Articles

Pressure-induced Amorphization of R-Al5Li3Cu: A Structural Relation Among Amorphous Metals, Quasi-Crystals, and Curved Space

Robert R. Winters 1 and William S. Hammack 1

1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

A central question in the study of amorphous materials is the extent to which they are ordered. When the crystalline intermetallic R-Al5Li3Cu is compressed to 23.2 gigapascals at ambient temperature, an amorphous phase is produced whose order can be described as defects in a curved-space crystal. This result supports a structural relation between quasi-crystals and amorphous metals based on icosahedral ordering. This result also shows that a metallic crystal can be made amorphous by compression.

Submitted on November 3, 1992
Accepted on January 21, 1993

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)