Short-range order in Fe-21.9 at.% Al

Abstract

Elastic diffuse neutron scattering of an Fe-21.9 at.% Al single crystal was measured at 878, 966 and 1073 K. The separated short-range order scattering revealed the building elements of the B2 structure as the characteristic local atomic arrangement for all states investigated. Effective pair interaction parameters, obtained by the inverse Monte-Carlo method, were found to depend on temperature, thus prohibiting a determination of possible ground state structures from the high-temperature measurements. An additional X-ray study of single-crystalline Fe-18.2 at.% Al aged at 598 K, gave no indication for B32 as ground state structure.