Quantitative aAdsorbate structure determination for quasicrystals using X-Ray standing waves

Diehl, R. D., Li, H. I., Su, S. Y., Mayer, A., Stanisha, N. A., Ledieu, J., Lovelock, K. R. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1431-269X, Jones, R. G., Deyko, A., Wearing, L. H., McGrath, R., Chaudhuri, A. and Woodruff, D. P. (2014) Quantitative aAdsorbate structure determination for quasicrystals using X-Ray standing waves. Physical Review Letters, 113 (10). 106101. ISSN 0031-9007 doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.106101

Abstract/Summary

The quantitative structure determination of adsorbed species on quasicrystal surfaces has so far appeared to present insurmountable problems. The normal incidence standing x-ray wave field technique offers a simple solution, without extensive data sets or large computations. Its application to quasicrystals raises several conceptual difficulties that are related to the phase problem in x-ray diffraction. We demonstrate their solution for the case of Si atoms adsorbed on the decagonal Co-rich modification of the Al-Co-Ni quasicrystal to determine the local structure, comprising 6-atom clusters in particular hollow sites.