Comparing different approaches to model the atomic structure of a ternary decagonal quasicrystal

Abstract

It is shown that the covering approach with a single decagonal prototile can be transformed into a hexagon, boat and star tiling. Particularly, the atomic decoration recently proposed by Cockayne and Widom (Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 598 (1998)) as a structure model for the decagonal phase is investigated. There, conflicts with the prototile approach arise which are due to specific peculiarities of the decoration. The above model is compared with recent experimental images which give strong support to its main features, but contradict competing structure proposals. The implications for the stabilization mechanism are discussed.