English

Tile Hamiltonian for Decagonal AlCoCu

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

A tile Hamiltonian (TH) replaces the actual atomic interactions in a quasicrystal with effective interactions between and within tiles. We studied Al-Co-Cu decagonal quasicrystals described as decorated Hexagon-Boat-Star (HBS) tiles using {\em ab-initio} methods. The dominant term in the TH counts the number of H, B and S tiles. Phason flips that replace an HS pair with a BB pair lower the energy. In Penrose tilings, quasiperiodicity is forced by arrow matching rules on tile edges. The edge arrow orientation in our model of AlCoCu is due to Co/Cu chemical ordering. Tile edges meet in vertices with 72^\circ or 144^\circ angles. We find strong interactions between edge orientations at 72^\circ vertices that force a type of matching rule. Interactions at 144^\circ vertices are somewhat weaker.

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0205489,
  title  = {Tile Hamiltonian for Decagonal AlCoCu},
  author = {Ibrahim Al-Lehyani and Mike Widom},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0205489},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

19 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to PRB