Hierarchical crystal-chemical analysis of binary intermetallic compounds

A modified Voronoi-Dirichlet polyhedra (VDP) method based on the clusterization of interatomic contacts in the crystal structure depending on contact strength is described. This method makes it possible to carry out crystal-chemical analysis hierarchically, consecutively recognizing atomic nets with different groups of interatomic contacts. The method is used to carry out the topological classification of structure representations for 547 intermetallic compounds of composition AX. Structural relations between various topologic types of intermetallic compounds are discovered and discussed.