Terrace selection during equilibration at an icosahedral quasicrystal surface

Abstract

<p>We investigate the equilibration of a fivefold surface of the icosahedral Al‐Pd‐Mn quasicrystal at 900–915 and 925–950 K, using scanning tunneling microscopy. After annealing at the lower temperatures, there is a high density of shallow voids on some terraces but not on others; at 925–950 K, the void-rich terraces are much rarer. The terminations that are consumed by voids exhibit a distinctive local atomic configuration, called a “ring” by previous authors. Apparently, through growth and coalescence of the voids, a different termination becomes exposed on the host terraces, which also leads to a change in step heights at the edges of the terraces. We suggest that the shallow steps associated with the voids, and the ring configuration, signal a surface that is in an intermediate stage of structural equilibration.</p>