Structure of Cubic Al73.8Pd13.6Fe12.6 Phase with High Al Content

Abstract

A cubic ternary phase Al73.8Pd13.6Fe12.6 (designated C′ phase), with very high Al content (Al/TM = 2.82, TM denotes transition metal) was prepared by spark plasma sintering (SPS). Its crystal structure was determined by combing single-crystal X-ray diffraction (SXRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) measurements. The crystal structure of the new phase can be described with a small unit cell (a = 7.6403(2) Å; space group Pm3, No. 200) as that of Al2.63Rh (a = 7.6692(1) Å; space group P23, No. 195) while different from those of the reported Al39Pd21Fe2 (a = 15.515(1) Å; space group Fm3, No. 202) and Al69Pd17Fe14 (a = 15.3982(2) Å; space group Im3, No. 204) compounds, which both adopt a double length unit cell in the Al–Pd–Fe system. The mechanism of distributing more Al atoms in the new phase was compared with that of the Al2.63Rh phase by analyzing their site symmetry and the corresponding site of occupancies (SOF). Furthermore, relations of the C′ phase to the reported Al69Pd17Fe14 (designated C1 phase) and Al39Pd21Fe2 (designated C2 phase) phases were investigated by analyzing their building units with the “nanocluster” method in the ToposPro package.