Towards the chemically specific structure of amorphous materials: anomalous X-ray scattering from a molybdenum–germanium alloy

Anomalous X-ray scattering (AXS) has been used to obtain Mo–Ge, Mo–Mo and Ge–Ge partial pair distribution functions (PPDFs) from amorphous MoGe3 which has no crystalline analog. Experimental removal of inelastic scattering over much of the scattering range has yielded considerably improved PPDFs motivating still further optimization of the experimental system. The PPDFs indicate that on average Mo is surrounded by eight Ge atoms as in crystalline β-MoGe2. The PPDFs do not indicate phase separation. Other aspects of the structure are discussed.