The time-of-flight neutron scattering measurement was employed in order to elucidate the short range structures for a series of amorphous Se100-xTex (x = 0 similar to 20) mixtures synthesized by mechanical alloying (MA). The first peak in the radial distribution functions was resolved into two Gaussian peaks, which correspond to the Se-Se and Se-Te correlations, respectively. Amorphous Se prepared by MA has a lot of dangling bonds. In contrast, for the Se100-xTex samples, Te atoms are preferentially bonded with the dangling bonds of Se atoms with increasing Te concentration and, consequently, a twofold chain structure is formed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.