Preparation of the metastable compound Au3Si by quenching liquid droplets of a Au–25 at.% Si allow into water

Liquid droplets of a Au–25 at.% Si alloy have been quenched into water at room temperature. Metallographic examination has shown that some of the droplets are single phase and have the cellular structure characteristic of alloys which have been deeply under-cooled during solidification. X-ray diffraction was used to show that this phase is the orthorhombic metastable compound Au3Si.