Abstract
Despite Au, Al and Cu being individually very well-known elements, their ternary phase diagram has not been studied in as much detail as those of many other Au-containing ternaries. Here we review what is known, and consider the prospects for technological exploitation of some of the ternary compositions. The components of greatest interest in Al-Au-Cu may be the β-phases, at least two of which have shape memory properties. Of these, ‘Spangold’, which has the nominal stoichiometry Au7Cu5Al4, has received some attention for jewellery applications, while the edge compound Cu3Al is a well-known shape memory composition with corresponding specialised industrial uses. The properties of other β-phase compositions in the system have been scarcely investigated. The system also contains an extensive γ-phase, Al4AuxCu9−x, where x ranges from 0 to ∼6.5, and the purple gold phase AuAl2.
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Mr Vijay Bhatia is a PhD student at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. He holds a BSc(Hons) degree in nanotechnology from the same institution.
Dr Fiona Levey has a BSc(Eng) and a PhD, both in metallurgical engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. She now lives in the USA.Dr Catherine (‘Cat’) Kealley is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Technology Sydney. She holds a BSc(Hons) from Curtin University in Perth, Australia, and a PhD from University of Technology Sydney.
Dr Annette Dowd is a Lecturer in Physics at the University of Technology Sydney. She has a BSc(Hons) from UNSW and a PhD from the Australian National University in Canberra, both in Australia.Prof. Michael Cortie has a BSc(Eng) and PhD in metallurgical engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and a M.Eng from the University of Pretoria in the same country. He is Director of the Institute for Nanoscale Technology of the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.
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Bhatia, V.K., Levey, F.C., Kealley, C.S. et al. The aluminium-coppergold ternary system. Gold Bull 42, 201–208 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03214935
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03214935