Scattering Properties of Dense Random Packings of Hard Spheres

Dense random packings of hard spheres are used as structural models for amorphous metallic solids. These describe the short range atomic order in a number of amorphous metallic binary alloys. Results are presented of a calculation of the structure factor, dark‐field and interference contrast from two such models. These models consist of 7928 and 1000 atoms clusters. It is shown that these models contain structural anisotropy similar to the models used for amorphous semiconductors. Also, the scattering properties of these models are in qualitative accord with transmission electron microscopy observations.