Effect of temperature on the structure and electronic properties of the liquid alloy K-Sb

We have carried out elastic neutron scattering measurements on the liquid equiatomic binary alloy K-Sb. The derived structure factor, S(Q), has a prepeak at about 1.1 Angstrom(-1) indicative of large structural units. With increasing temperature to about 1800 K we find remarkably small changes in S(Q). We used the reverse Monte Carlo simulation method to explore details of the liquid structure in real space and found evidence to ascribe the prepeak in S(Q) to Sb-Sb correlations of Sb chain fragments. The electrical conductivity has a distinct increase from 0.8 to 40 Ohm(-1) cm(-1) at T approximate to 825 K, and a conductivity of approximately 350 Ohm(-1) cm(-1) is reached at 1673 K. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.