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Local Order in Liquid Gallium-Indium Alloys
Alfred Amon1,2, Philip A Chater3, Gavin Vaughan4
1Department of Chemistry, University College London, 20 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AJ, U.K.
Abstract:
Liquid metals such as eutectic Ga-In alloys have low melting points and low toxicity and are used in catalysis and micro-robotics. This study investigates the local atomic structure of liquid gallium-indium alloys by a combination of density measurements, diffraction data, and Monte-Carlo simulation via the empirical potential structure refinement approach. A high-Q shoulder observed in liquid Ga is related to structural rearrangements in the second coordination shell. Structure analysis found coordination environments close to a random distribution for eutectic Ga-In alloy, while electronic effects appear to dominate the mixing enthalpy.
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