Mechanical Spectroscopy of Quasicrystals

The use of mechanical spectroscopy to characterize the quasicrystalline state of solid matter is reviewed. After a general, chronological survey of existing mechanical spectroscopy studies, which include elastic properties as well as various relaxation phenomena between lowtemperature tunneling processes and high-temperature background damping, three subjects are considered in more detail: (i) the nature of intrinsic relaxation phenomena, including relaxation peaks in Al-Pd-Mn single quasicrystals, (ii) hydrogen-induced loss peaks in Zr/Ti-based quasicrystals and their use as a probe, and (iii) the study of nano-quasicrystalline structures and amorphousquasicrystalline transitions. It is shown that by combined studies of different elastic and anelastic phenomena, mechanical spectroscopy can be a valuable tool to obtain information about the nature and motion of defects, about the type of local atomic order, and about phase transformations and different processes leading to the formation of quasicrystalline order.