Structure of Liquid Gallium and Rubidium by Pulsed Neutron Diffraction Using Electron Linac

The static structure factors of liquid gallium and rubidium were measured at several temperatures above their melting points using the time of flight neutron diffractometer installed on the 300 MeV Tohoku University electron linac as a pulsed neutron source. The characteristic oscillation of the structure factor of liquid gallium in a high momentum transfer region has been shown to be well understood in terms of a diatomic molecule-like atomic association with the bond length of 2.69Å. It has been discussed, however, that the subsidiary maximum on the high momentum transfer side of the first peak in the structure factor of liquid gallium may appear due to the second and subsequent peaks in the pair correlation function to shift to a larger distance in comparison with those of simple liquid metals such as alkali metals.