Short- and medium-range ordering in Al3Mn amorphous alloy prepared by magnetron sputtering

Abstract

Abstract The structure of the Al3Mn amorphous alloy synthesized by magnetron sputtering was investigated using a combination of anomalous X-ray scattering and reverse Monte Carlo simulations. The geometrical features in the short- and medium-range regions around Mn were significantly different from those inferred by the dense random packing of the hard-sphere model, suggesting that the environmental structure around Mn is influenced by chemical interactions similar to those realized in the crystalline Al3Mn structure. The present advanced analysis also indicated that the medium-range ordering structure corresponding to a pre-peak signal in the X-ray diffraction profiles was because of the Al-Mn and Mn-Mn correlations accompanied by the modulation of number density and non-Bernal-type coordination geometry.