Substitutional site preference in a quasicrystal

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Abstract
Iron has been successfully incorporated in the quasicrystal i‐Al74Si6Mn20−xFex up to a concentration x=7. A combination of magnetic susceptibility and Mössbauer study establishes the fact that there are at least two ‘‘classes’’ in Mn sites and that Fe substitutes for only one of them. High‐field Mössbauer measurements at 4.2 K show that the substituted iron carries no local moment, while low‐temperature susceptibility data indicate that its presence does not perturb the Curie–Weiss amplitude of the sample. The inference is that both magnetic and nonmagnetic Mn sites must be present in the quasicrystal and that iron can substitute only from among the latter. The simplest interpretation would be in terms of two ‘‘classes’’ on Mn sites (one supporting a local moment, one not), although the possibility of there being more than one class of nonmagnetic site cannot yet be excluded.