Experimental and theoretical investigations of order-disorder in Cu2AlMn

A combination of X-ray and neutron powder diffraction has been used to measure the two long range order parameters vs. temperature below the disorder-B2 transition in the ternary alloy Cu2 AlMn. The results indicate that at temperatures just below the critical point the Al + Mn sublattice is enriched in Al. First-principles calculations based on only the atomic numbers of Cu, Mn and Al support the experimentally-observed preference of Al for the Al + Mn sublattice, and reveal the interplay between the constituent binary systems that gives rise to this behavior.