Synthesis and structural analysis of Cu 10Zr 7

Few and poor experimental data for the Cu 10Zr 7 intermetallic compound are available in literature. Up to now, its crystal structure has not been refined yet and the atomic coordinates of the iso-structural Ni 10Zr 7 phase were used. The recent interest of near equiatomic CuZr alloys, as high temperature shape memory alloys (HT SMAs) as well as metallic glasses, requires defined structural data for determining the co-existing phases in bulk material properly. We synthetized pure polycrystalline Cu 10Zr 7 alloy and both its cell parameters and structure were refined by Rietveld method; definitively correct lattice values, space group and atomic coordinates are reported and discussed comparing them with the previous data available in the literature.