Formation of an icosahedral phase in ion-irradiated Fe/Cu multilayers

Abstract
An icosahedral phase has been observed for the first time in the equilibrium immiscible Fe-Cu system. The new metastable phase was formed by directed xenon ion mixing of Fe/Cu multilayers at room temperature and without any amorphous-to-quasi-crystalline phase transition. The atomic concentration of this phase was determined by in situ energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) to be around Fe60Cu40.