Atomic scale investigation of a novel metastable structure in aged Mg-Nd alloys

A novel metastable β3 phase in Mg-Nd alloys was found and determined to be an orthorhombic lattice with space group Cmcm. Meanwhile, there exist three types of variants (V1, V2 and V3) of β3 phase, which are related by a 120° rotation with respect to each other around the same [001]β3 axis.178