Electron diffraction structure analysis for amorphous materials

Amorphous structures of liquid-quenched Fe90Zr7B3 and ion-bombarded SiC were studied using modern electron diffraction structure analysis techniques. From a reverse Monte-Carlo (RMC) structural simulation on the experimental atomic pair distribution function (PDF) of amorphous Fe90Zr7B3, “nano-scale phase separation” was found to occur in this structure with spatial distributions of body-centered cubic-like, icosahedral and trigonal prism clusters. In amorphous SiC, the network includes not only heteronuclear (Si–C) bonds but also homonuclear (Si–Si and C–C) bonds. The ratio of homonuclear to heteronuclear bonds changes due to structural relaxation.