Formation of short-range order in Al-Ge-Fe melts: influence of composition

The short-range order in Al-Ge-Fe melts has been studied by X-ray diffraction and reverse Monte Carlo simulations in wide concentration range. Influence of the replacement of one component by another while the content of third component is constant on the formation of a local structure of ternary melts has been discussed. It has been shown that at Ge content less than 30 at. % Ge atoms are uniformly distributed in the volume of the Al-Ge-Fe melts and atomic clusters with structure similar to the liquid germanium are formed at content more than 30 at. % Ge. The addition of the third component (Ge or Al) to the binary Al-Fe or Fe-Ge melts, correspondingly, results in competition between Al and Ge atoms in formation of the local structure around Fe atoms. The obtained concentration dependences of the nearest neighbour distances point out that the ternary interactions take place in the Al-Fe-Ge melts.