Nucleation behavior of Al–Mn icosahedral phase

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Abstract
Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) atomization has been used to rapidly solidify micron and submicron size droplets of Al-14 at. % Mn to study nucleation behavior of icosahedral phase. Icosahedral grain size has been found to decrease continuously with decreasing droplet size. Based on this result, formation of the icosahedral phase is explained by homogeneous nucleation. Extremely low resistance to nucleation of icosahedral phase can be understood if possible topological similarities between liquid and icosahedral quasicrystal are considered. Formation of glass as configurationally frozen liquid in Al-Mn and similar alloy systems is questionable, implying that the reported Al-Mn glass probably has a microquasicrystalline structure.