Mission General Objectives Fundamental Questions

Some fundamental questions - many of them strongly correlated - concerning the nature of Laves phases have to be answered: ▪ Which binary systems form stable or metastable Laves phases, and which phases are thermodynamic competitors?

▪ Which ternary Laves phases are accessible via binary ones as terminal solid solutions, and which are intermediate ternary Laves phases?

▪ Which Laves phase polytypes are thermodynamically stable or metastable?

▪ Which factors determine the homogeneity ranges?

▪ How do phase transformations between different polytypes proceed?

▪ What is the kinetics of the phase transformations between different polytypes?

▪ What is the character of chemical bonding as a function of the components, composition, structure, temperature and pressure?

▪ What is the relation between physical properties and real structures of the polytypes?

▪ What is the influence of impurities?