Influence of quasicrystalline phase on transport processes in Zr70Pd30 amorphous alloy

Electron transport and structural properties of amorphous Zr70Pd30 alloy are investigated by electrical resistivity, thermoelectric power, differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction methods. It was found that appearance of the icosahedral quasicrystalline phase in the first crystallization stage contributes to an increase of the electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient. Temperature variation of transport properties in amorphous phase excludes a variable range hopping model, which supplies unreasonable values of hopping energy and hopping distance. A similar degree of agreement between experimental results and both the Ziman and weak localization models is found for the electrical resistivity. However, a relatively high content of early transition Zr atoms in the alloy points rather that the weak localization may play a role.