Week 1

researchWeek1

The first week I focused on analyzing the experimental S(q) and g(r) data from the x-ray diffraction done at Washington University, St. Louis. The trends observed for Ni24Zr76 were that as temperature decreases, the height of the first peak (S(q)1) increases. Contrary to predictions, the position of the peak, q, only shifted by a total of about 0.03 1/A between highest and lowest temperatures. Another observation was that the percent composition of Nickel has a strange effect on the g(r) function in the glassy data in that another smaller peak appears farther in  from the tallest peak.

A reverse-Monte Carlo program was tested on S(q) data at 1200C, where the chi squared vale was 2.9364 and the first peak was within .05 the height of the experimental S(q).