“…Brewer and Krikorian [18] suggested that Ta 4.5 Si was a metastable crystalline phase, which was later confirmed by Deardorff et al [19] A new compound, Ta 3 Si, was further identified by x-ray diffraction (XRD). [19,20] Kocherzhinskii et al [21] carefully measured the phase diagram of the Si-Ta system using metallographic, XRD, and differential thermal analysis (DTA) techniques. The liquidus data between 25 and 60 at.% Si are very consistent with the results of Kieffer et al [16] In addition to TaSi 2 , Ta 2 Si, Ta 3 Si, they reported the existence of Ta 5 Si 3 in two crystal structures: aTa 5 Si 3 (Cr 5 B 3 -type) at low temperatures and bTa 5 Si 3 (W 5 Si 3 -type) at high temperatures.…”