Structural observation of amorphous alloys by neutron diffraction

Neutron diffraction is a powerful tool to elucidate the atomic arrangement of amorphous alloys because of characteristic scattering lengths of constituent elements. For hydrogen absorption amorphous alloys H/D isotopic substitution was employed to observe the location of deuterium atoms because the neutron coherent scattering length of deuterium is large enough to observe in comparison with those of the constituent atoms. Moreover, Reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) modeling has been recognized to be an excellent method for visualizing the three-dimensional atomic arrangement of amorphous alloys, based on the results of neutron and X-ray diffraction experiments. Therefore, the combination of neutron, X-ray diffraction experiments and the RMC modeling was used to clarify the topological characteristics of the structure of amorphous alloys. (author)