Electric, magnetic, and thermal properties of quasicrystal-forming melts

This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project no. 10-02-00602-a. The electric resistance, magnetic susceptibility, and specific heat of the icosahedral phases of the Al-Cu-Fe system have been examined in the melt region. It has been shown that the features of the properties of a homogeneous solid state, as well as correlations between these features, hold in melts up to temperatures above the melting point by several hundreds of degrees. The results indicate that the short-range order and orbital hybridization determine the mechanism responsible for the electronic spectrum and ultrahigh-resistance state of quasicrystals.