Five-fold electron diffraction patterns were found in a rapidly solidified aluminium-palladium alloy in 1978. Although a number of quasicrystals have since been identified in particular alloys of aluminium with a platinum metal, no systematic study has been made.

Now a series of papers on the topic, reporting work carried out in the P. R. China, has been published in the J. Less-Common Met., 1990, 163, (1). An overview of quasicrystals in aluminium-transition metal alloys in general, and aluminium-platinum group metals in particular, is presented by K. H. Kuo (Pages 9–17). Aluminium-ruthenium and aluminium-osmium alloys have been studied by Zhong-Min Wang, Yi-Qun Gao and K. H. Kuo, mainly by transmission electron microscopy. They observed icosahedral quasicrystals in melt-spun ribbons of Al _s Ru, but not in Al ₅ Os. Decagonal quasicrystals form readily in the latter, but only rarely in the former (Pages 19-26).

Rong Wang, Lina Ma and K. H. Kuo have discovered decagonal quasicrystals in both rapidly solidified Al _s Rh and Al ₅ Ir, and in addition have found two new hexagonal aluminium-iridium phases (Pages 27-35). L. Ma, R. Wang and K. H. Kuo confirm the presence of decagonal quasicrystals in rapidly solidified Al₅Pd, but not in Al₅Pt (Pages 37–49).