1992    
1993    
1994    
1995    
1996    
1997    
1998    
1999    
2000    
2001    
2002    
2003    
2004    
2005    
2006    
2007    
2008    
2009    
2010    
2011    
2012    
2013    
2014    
2015    
2016    
Zavaliche, F., Manaila, R., Haberkern, R., Häussler, P., Poon, S. J., Belu-Marian, A., Devenyi, A.

Conduction mechanism in some icosahedral and amorphous phases
Physica Status Solidi B 218, pp 485 (2000)
Quasicrystalline icosahedral and amorphous phases prepared as thin films or bulk samples in the systems Al-Pd-Re, Al-Cu-Fe and Ti-Zr-Ni, have been investigated with respect to their temperature dependence of conductance and thermopower, in the range between 10 and 300 K. Various conduction mechanisms yield different exponent values in the power-law temperature dependence of conductance, Tt. A semi-metal behaviour (zeta congruent to 1.5) is found in the amorphous phase and in the disordered icosahedral Al-Pd-Rt: film and Ti-Zr-Ni ribbons, as well as in icosahedral Al-Cu-Fe films. Lower zeta values found in the quasi-perfect icosahedral Al-Pd-Re bulk sample and in two of the icosahedral Al-Cu-Fe films suggest that electron localization in a hierarchy of clusters is the main conduction mechanism in these samples. The thermopower data support the existence of a pseudo-gap at the Fermi level and suggest a similar short-range order in both amorphous and icosahedral phases. The special sensitivity of the thermopower to the DOS details at E-F is responsible for the strong variation of its magnitude with the degree of icosahedral order.

ki-2000-c01