1999/11/26 by R. Haberkern, Roland Haberkern, Haberkern, Roland
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Mathematical Theories and Applications #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Nanocluster Synthesis and Applications #Quasicrystal Structures and Properties #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/9911426
17 pages, 10 figures: tutorial review presented at a summer school on quasicrystals in Chemnitz 1997; will eventually be published in a book called "Quasicrystals"
arxiv created 1999/11/26 · openalex publication_date 1999/11/26 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Quasicrystals are assumed to be electronically stabilized by a Hume-Rothery type mechanism. This explains most of the peculiar properties of quasicrystals. The stabilization is investigated by electronic transport properties, as they depend sensitively on the stabilizing interaction between the static structure and the conduction electrons. Thin-film techniques provide samples which are well suited for systematic investigations as a function of composition and structural quality for Al-Cu-Fe and Al-Pd-Re i-phases. For a narrow range of composition, large transport anomalies occur, reaching a metal-insulator-transition in thin films of i-Al-Pd-Re. We discuss this in the framework of a resonant scattering of the conduction electrons with the quasicrystalline structure, leading to a reduced electronic mobility and density of states (DOS) at the Fermi energy EF.