Structural instability and photoacoustic study of AlSb prepared by mechanical alloying

High-purity elemental Al and Sb powders were blended with equiatomic composition and submitted to mechanical alloying. For all milling times, the milled powders showed a mixture of AlSb and elemental Sb. The largest amount of AlSb was reached for milling times between 7 and 10 h. For milling times larger than 10 h, decomposition of AlSb was observed. The volume fractions of the crystalline and interfacial components were estimated using the X-ray diffraction pattern of a sample milled for 10 h. Photoacoustic absorption spectroscopy (PAS) was used to determine the thermal diffusivity and other heat transport parameters in the same sample. A combination of XRD and PAS data was used to estimate the thermal diffusivity of the interfacial component, which has a significant contribution to the thermal diffusivity of the sample.