| Abstract Scope |
The congruently melting, single phase, intermetallic compound ε-Ni5Ge3 was produced by arc melt. It was subject to rapid solidification via drop-tube processing. The compound remained fully single phase ε-Ni5Ge3, irrespective of the imposed cooling rate. In the investigation of ε-Ni5Ge3 compound, four dominant solidification morphologies were observed, namely; Partial plate and lath, plate and lath microstructure, isolated hexagonal crystallites, and single crystal imbedded within a featureless matrix. SAD analysis in TEM reveals that the partial plate and laths and plate and laths are partial ordered variant of έ-Ni5Ge3 and ε-Ni5Ge3 respectively, whilst the featureless matrix of both microstructures are ordered variant of the same compound. However, isolated hexagonal crystallites are a disordered variant of ε-Ni5Ge3, although featureless matrix are the ordered variant. SAD analysis in TEM also indicated that, at the highest cooling rates, single crystal structure along with featureless matrix is the completely disordered variant of the same compound. |