Structural relaxation in amorphous PdNiP chemical and topological ordering

Abstract

Two sets of experimental data for structural relaxation in amorphous PdNi P are analysed in detail. Differential scanning calorimetry measurements for Pd₄₀Ni₂₀P₂₀, can be described to a great degree of detail by the free-volume theory, using parameter values that were extracted from speed-of-sound and viscosity measurements. This description corroborates the conjecture that structural-relaxation processes can be divided into chemical and topological ordering. By means of the reverse Monte Carlo technique atomic configurations for Pd₅₂Ni₃₂P₁₆ in the as-quenched and in an annealed state are deduced from radial distribution functions obtained by neutron diffraction. These configurations indicate that the atomic positions change very little during structural relaxation.