Short-range order and singularities of the electronic structure of icosahedral quasicrystals

For icosahedral phases of the Al–Cu–Fe system, components of the electrical conductivity, magnetic susceptibility, Hall effect, and heat capacity associated with thermally induced charge carriers for the first time have been considered jointly over a wide temperature range. It has been shown that the full range of thermal effects can be understood in the framework of the unified concept, which is based on an inhomogeneous system of two-level electronic excitations. A model of the inhomogeneous electronic state and the mechanism of its formation with the dominant role of short-range order have been proposed.