An atomistic study was made of the electron-induced amorphization of this ordered intermetallic compound by means of in situ high-resolution high-voltage electron microscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations. The theoretical and experimental results showed that metastable nm-sized clusters formed and disappeared during irradiation, such that spatiotemporal fluctuation under amorphization was produced. Mean-lifetime measurements of these clusters demonstrated that high-energy particle irradiation provided a useful tool for studying dynamic fluctuations of the local atomic structure in non-equilibrium open systems.

Atomistic Study of Structural Fluctuations during Radiation-Induced Amorphization in the Ordered Intermetallic Compound NiTi. S.Watanabe, T.Koike, T.Suda, S.Ohnuki, H.Takahashi, N.Q.Lam: Philosophical Magazine Letters, 2001, 81[11], 789-94