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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
The low temperature interdiffusion of superlattice reactants of the binarysystems niobium‐selenium and copper‐selenium and the ternarycopper‐niobium‐selenium were explored to synthesize amorphous reactionintermediates. Controlled crystallization of this intermediate, whichdepends upon nucleation energetics rather than the thermodynamic stabilityof the final product, was used as we attempted to prepare ternary niobiumcluster compounds. We present data demonstrating the ability to prepareamorphous ternary intermediates without the formation of crystalline binarycompounds as reaction intermediates. Crystallization of the amorphousintermediate resulted in the formation of known ternary compounds directly,also without the formation of binary compounds.