The high-pressure behaviour of Cm and Am0.5Cm0.5 binary alloy is investigated theoretically using ab initio electronic structure methods. Our calculations reproduce the structural phase transitions, which are observed in recent experiment performed by Heathman et al. [S. Heathman, R.G. Haire, T. Le Bihan et al., Science 309 110 (2005)] and Lindbaum et al. [A. Lindbaum, S. Heathman, T. Le Bihan et al., J. Phys: Condens. Matter 15 S2297 (2003)]. Calculated transition pressures are in reasonable agreement with the experimental values. Calculations performed for an antiferromagnetic state are essential to reproduce the stability of Cm-III phase.
The third element effect to improve the high temperature corrosion resistance of the low-Al Fe-Cr-Al alloys is suggested to involve a mechanism that boosts the recovering of the Al concentration to the required level in the Al-depleted zone beneath the oxide layer. We propose that the key factor in this mechanism is the coexistent Cr depletion that helps to maintain a sufficient Al content in the depleted zone. Several previous experiments related to our study support that conditions for such a mechanism to be functional prevail in real oxidation processes of Fe-Cr-Al alloys.
Good high-temperature corrosion resistance of Fe-Al alloys in oxidizing environments is due to the alpha-Al2O3 film which is formed on the surface provided temperature is above 900 degrees C and the Al-content of the alloy exceeds the critical value. Ab initio calculations combined with experiments on Fe-13Al, Fe-18Al, Fe-23Al and Fe-10Cr-10Al alloys show that the beneficial effect of Cr on the oxidation resistance is significantly related to bulk effects. The comparison of experimental and calculated results indicates a clear correlation between the Fe-Cr chemical potential difference and the formation of the protective oxide scales.
The reversal of the magnitudes of the bulk and surface chemical-potential differences induces the outburst of Cr on the otherwise pure Fe surface of Fe-Cr alloys. This threshold value for the Cr content is about 10 at. %. It is found that vanadium addition to Fe-Cr shifts the Cr threshold to a substantially lower value suggesting V having a positive effect on the corrosion resistance of low Cr steels. The obtained shift in the Cr threshold is shown to be connected to the change in volume of the alloy.
Iron–chromium is the base material for most of the stainless steel grades. Recently, new insights into the origins of fundamental physical and chemical characteristics of Fe–Cr based alloys have been achieved. Some of the new results are quite unexpected and call for further investigations. The present study focuses on the magnetic contribution in the atomic driving forces related to the chemical composition in Fe–Cr when alloyed with Al, Ti, V, Mn, Co, Ni, and Mo. Using the ab initio exact muffin-tin orbitals method combined with an Ising-type spin model, we demonstrate that the magnetic moment of the solute atoms with the induced changes in the magnetic moments of the host atoms form the main factor in determining the mixing energy and chemical potentials of low-Cr Fe–Cr based alloys. The results obtained in the present work are related to the designing and tuning of the microstructure and corrosion protection of low-Cr steels.
We investigate the basis set convergence of the exact muffin-tin orbitals by monitoring the equation of state for Al, Cu, and Rh calculated in the conventional face-centered-cubic lattice (str-I) and in a face-centered-cubic lattice with one atomic and three empty sites per primitive cell (str-II). We demonstrate that three (spd) muffin-tin orbitals are sufficient to describe Al in both structures, but for str-II Cu and Rh at least five (spdfg) orbitals are needed to get converged equilibrium Wigner-Seitz radius (within <= 0.8%) and bulk modulus (<= 3.3%). We ascribe this slow convergence to the nearly spherical densities localized around the Cu and Rh atoms, which create strongly asymmetric charge distributions within the nearest cells around the empty sites. The potential sphere radius dependence of the theoretical results for structure str-II is discussed. It is shown that a properly optimized overlapping muffin-tin potential in combination with the spdfg basis yields acceptable errors in the equilibrium bulk properties. The basis set convergence is also shown on hydrogenated Sc and Sc-based alloys.
Employing the first-principles exact muffin-tin orbital method in combination with the coherent potential approximation, we calculated the total energy and local magnetic moments of paramagnetic Fe-Cr-M (M = Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni) alloys along the tetragonal distortion (Bain) path connecting the body centered cubic (bcc) and the face centered cubic (fcc) structures. The paramagnetic phase is modeled by the disordered local magnetic moment scheme. For all alloys, the local magnetic moments on Fe atoms decrease from the maximum value corresponding to the bcc phase toward the minimum value realized for the fcc phase. Cobalt atoms have non-vanishing local magnetic moments only for tetragonal lattices with c/a < 1.30, whereas the local magnetic moments of Mn show weak crystal structure dependence. We find that Cr stabilizes the bcc lattice and increases the energy barrier as going from the bcc toward the fcc phase. Both Co and Ni favor the fcc lattice and decrease the energy barrier relative to the bcc phase. On the other hand, the tetragonal distortion around the fcc phase is facilitated by Cr and to a somewhat lesser extent also by Ni, but strongly impeded by Co. Manganese has negligible effect on the structural energy difference as well as on the energy barrier along the Bain path. Our findings on the alloying induced softening or hardening of Fe-Cr based alloys against tetragonal distortions are important for understanding the interstitial driven martensitic transformations in alloy steels.
Ab initio total energy calculations, based on the projector augmented wave method and the exact muffin-tin orbitals method in combination with the coherent-potential approximation, are used to examine the effect of magnesium on hydrogen absorption/desorption temperature and phase stability of hydrogenated ScAl(1-x)Mg(x) (0 <= x <= 0.3) alloys. According to the experiments, ScAl(1-x)Mg(x) adopts the CsCl structure, and upon hydrogen absorption it decomposes into ScH(2) with CaF(2) structure and Al-Mg with face centered cubic structure. Here we demonstrate that the stability field of the hydrogenated alloys depends sensitively on Mg content and on the microstructure of the decomposed system. For a given microstructure, the critical temperature for hydrogen absorption/desorption increases with Mg concentration.
We scrutinise the muffin-tin approximation and the screening within the framework of the Exact Muffin-Tin Orbitals method in the case of cubic and tetragonal crystal symmetries. Systematic total energy calculations are carried out for the Bain path including the body-centred cubic and face-centred cubic structures for a set of simple and transition metals. The present converged results in terms of potential sphere radius (S) and hard sphere radius (b) are in good agreement with previous theoretical calculations. We demonstrate that for all structures considered here, potential sphere radii around and slightly larger than the average Wigner-Seitz radius (w) yield accurate total energy results whereas S values smaller than w give large errors. It is shown that for converged total energies hard spheres with radii b = 0.7-0.8w should be used for an efficient screening within real space clusters consisting typically of 70-90 lattice sites. The less efficient convergence of the total energy in the case of small hard spheres is ascribed to the delocalisation of the screened spherical waves, which leads to inaccurate interstitial overlap matrix. The above conclusions are not significantly affected by the volume of the system.
Using density-functional theory in combination with the exact muffin-tin orbital (EMTO) method and coherent potential approximation, we investigate the alloying effect on the tetragonality of Fe-C solid solution forming the basis of steels. In order to assess the accuracy of our approach, first we perform a detailed study of the performance of the EMTO method for the Fe(16)C(1) binary system by comparing the EMTO results to those obtained using the projector augmented wave method. In the second step, we introduce different substitutional alloying elements (Al, Cr, Co, Ni) into the Fe matrix and study their impact on the structural parameters. We demonstrate that a small amount of Al, Co, and Ni enhances the tetragonal lattice ratio of Fe(16)C(1) whereas Cr leaves the ratio almost unchanged. The obtained trends are correlated with the single-crystal elastic parameters calculated for carbon-free alloys.
We investigate the effect of manganese on lattice stability and magnetic moments of paramagnetic Fe-Cr-Mn steel alloys along the Bain path connecting the body-centered cubic (bcc) and face-centered cubic (fcc) structures. The calculations are carried out using the ab initio exact muffin-tin orbital method, in combination with the coherent potential approximation, and the paramagnetic phase is modeled by the disordered local magnetic moment scheme. For all Fe-Cr-Mn alloys considered here, the local magnetic moments on Fe atoms have the minimum values for the fcc structure and the maximum values for the bcc structure, whereas the local magnetic moments on Mn have almost the same value along the constant-volume Bain path. Our results show that Mn addition to paramagnetic Fe-Cr solid solution stabilizes the bcc structure. However, when considering the paramagnetic fcc phase relative to the ferromagnetic bcc ground state, then Mn turns out to be a clear fcc stabilizer, in line with observations.
Using the Exact Muffin-Tin Orbitals method within the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof exchange-correlation approximation for solids and solid surfaces (PBEso1), we study the single crystal elastic constants of 4d transition metals (atomic number Z between 39 and 47) and their binary alloys in the body centered cubic (bcc) and face centered cubic (fcc) structures. Alloys between the first neighbors Z(Z + 1) and between the second neighbors Z(Z + 2) are considered. The lattice constants, bulk moduli and elastic constants are found in good agreement with the available experimental and theoretical data. It is shown that the correlation between the relative tetragonal shear elastic constant C-fcc'-2C(bcc)' and the structural energy difference between the fcc and bcc lattices Delta E is superior to the previously considered models. For a given crystal structure, the equiatomic Z(Z + 2) alloys turn out to have similar structural and elastic properties as the pure elements with atomic number (Z + 1). Furthermore, alloys with composition Z(1-x)(Z + 2)(x) possess similar properties as Z(1-2x)(Z + 1)(2x). The present theoretical data on the structural and the elastic properties of 4d transition metal alloys provides consistent input for coarse scale modeling of material properties.
We present an ab initio density functional theory study of the binding behavior of CO and O(2) molecules to two-and three-dimensional isomers of Au(13) in order to investigate the potential catalytic activity of this cluster towards low-temperature CO oxidation. First, we scanned the potential energy surface of Au(13) and studied the effect of spin-orbit coupling on the relative stabilities of the 21 isomers we identified. While spin-orbit coupling increases the stability of the three-dimensional more than the two-dimensional isomers, the ground state structure at 0 K remains planar. Second, we systematically studied the binding of CO and O(2) molecules onto the planar and three-dimensional structures lowest in energy. We find that the isomer dimensionality has little effect on the binding of CO to Au(13). O(2), on the other hand, binds significantly to the three-dimensional isomer only. The simultaneous binding of multiple CO molecules decreases the binding energy per molecule. Still, the CO binding remains stronger than the O(2) binding. We did not find a synergetic effect due to the co-adsorption of both molecular species. On the three-dimensional isomer, we find O(2) dissociation to be exothermic with an dissociation barrier of 1.44 eV.
In this paper we have used a combined first principles and Calphad approach to calculate phase diagrams in the titanium-carbon-nitrogen system, with particular focus on the vacancy-induced ordering of the substoichiometric carbonitride phase, TiCxNy (x + y <= 1). Results from earlier Monte Carlo simulations of the low-temperature binary phase diagrams are used in order to formulate sublattice models for TiCxNy within the compound energy formalism (CEF) that are capable of describing both the low temperature ordered and the high-temperature disordered state. We parameterize these models using first-principles calculations and then we demonstrate how they can be merged with thermodynamic descriptions of the remaining Ti-C-N phases that are derived within the Calphad method by fitting model parameters to experimental data. We also discuss structural and electronic properties of the ordered end-member compounds, as well as short range order effects in the TiCxNy phase.
The electronic structure and thermodynamic properties of CeO2 and Ce2O3 have been studied from first principles by the all-electron projector-augmented-wave (PAW) method, as implemented in the ab initio total-energy and molecular-dynamics program VASP (Vienna ab initio simulation package). The local density approximation (LDA)+U formalism has been used to account for the strong on-site Coulomb repulsion among the localized Ce 4f electrons. We discuss how the properties of CeO2 and Ce2O3 are affected by the choice of U as well as the choice of exchange-correlation potential, i.e., the local density approximation or the generalized gradient approximation. Further, reduction of CeO2, leading to formation of Ce2O3 and CeO2-x, and its dependence on U and exchange-correlation potential have been studied in detail. Our results show that by choosing an appropriate U it is possible to consistently describe structural, thermodynamic, and electronic properties of CeO2, Ce2O3, and CeO2-x, which enables modeling of redox processes involving ceria-based materials.
The authors have used density functional theory calculations to investigate how the redox thermodynamics and kinetics of CeO2 are influenced by forming solid solutions with TiO2, ZrO2, HfO2, and ThO2. Reduction is facilitated by dissolving TiO2 (largest improvement), HfO2, or ZrO2 (least improvement), while ThO2 makes reduction slightly more difficult. The migration barrier is much lower in the neighborhood of a Ti (largest decrease), Hf, or Zr (least decrease), while the binding energy of solute ions and vacancies increases in the same sequence. They rationalize the properties of ceria solid solutions in terms of defect cluster relaxations.
We have calculated the change in the electronic structure and the distortion of the lattice in vanadium upon hydrogenation from first principles using the full-potential linear muffin-tin-orbital method and the linear augmented plane-wave method in the local-density approximation. The calculated hydrogen induced volume expansions agree with experiment and the change in the c/a ratio is also in good agreement with observations where such are available for single phase VHx. Among several changes in the electronic structure, we note a hybridization of the d band of vanadium with the hydrogen 1s band. We also observe an antiferromagnetically ordered moment at V/Vexp=1.08. The possibility of producing magnetic V by means of hydrogenation in combination with epitaxial growth is suggested.
Boundary roughness scattering in disordered tunnel-coupled quantum wires in the presence of a magnetic
field is considered. The low-temperature conductance as a function of applied magnetic field is calculated for
different structure and disorder parameters using the method of the generalized S-matrix composition.We show
that despite the fact that lateral wire width fluctuations of the size of few atomic layers may significantly shift
the partial energy gap, the effect of the conductance enhancement at energies in the partial energy gap does
take place in sufficiently strong magnetic fields and small correlation length of the disorder defined as the
average distance between the neighboring discontinuities of the boundary profile. The last parameter is shown
to be particularly important for the determination of the transport properties of the system. Remarkably, we find
that in a wide range of system parameters the conductance decreases with the correlation length despite the
decreasing number of boundary discontinuities.
We investigate the effect of the boundary roughness scattering on the conductance of a disordered tunnel-coupled quantum wire in the presence of a magnetic field. It is shown that the average distance between the neighboring discontinuities of the boundary profile plays an important role in the transport properties of the system and the manifestation of the localization-delocalization effect. Present studies point out a new effect consisting in the
decrease of the conductance with the increase of the disorder correlation length.
Robust ferromagnetic ordering at, and well above room temperature is observed in pure transparent MgO thin films (<170 nm thick) deposited by three different techniques. Careful study of the wide scan x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy rule out the possible presence of any magnetic contaminants. In the magnetron sputtered films, we observe magnetic phase transitions as a function of film thickness. The maximum saturation magnetization of 5.7 emu/cm(3) is measured on a 170 nm thick film. The films above 500 nm are found to be diamagnetic. Ab initio calculations suggest that the ferromagnetism is mediated by cation vacancies.
We performed two-phase ab initio density functional theory based molecular dynamics simulations of Xe melting and demonstrated that, contrary to claims in the recent literature, the pressure dependence of the Xe melting curve is consistent with the corresponding-states theory as well as with the melting curve obtained earlier from classical molecular dynamics with a Xe pair potential. While at low pressure the calculated melting curve is in perfect agreement with reliable experiments, our calculated melting temperatures at higher pressures are inconsistent with those from the most recent diamond anvil cell experiment. We discuss a possible explanation for this inconsistency.
The face-centered-cubic (fcc) Lennard-Jones (LJ) model can be considered as a representative model of a simple solid. We investigate the mechanism of melting at the limit of superheating in the fcc LJ solid by means of the procedure recently developed by us [Phys. Rev. B 73, 012201 (2006)]. Insight into the mechanism of melting was gained by studying diffusion and defects in the fcc LJ solid by means of molecular dynamics simulations. We found that the limit of superheating achieved by us is likely to be the highest so far. We also found that the size of the cluster which ignites the melting is very small (down to five to six atoms, depending on the size of the supercell) and closely correlates with the linear size of a supercell when the number of atoms varies between 500 and 13 500.
It is well established that at a pressure of several megabars and low temperature Fe is stable in the hexagonal-close-packed (hcp) phase. However, there are indications that on heating a high-pressure hcp phase of Fe transforms to a less dense (open structure) phase. Two phases have been suggested as candidates for these high-temperature stable phases: namely, body-centered-cubic and body-centered-tetragonal (bct) phases. We performed first-principles molecular dynamics and phonon analysis of the bct Fe phase and demonstrated its dynamical instability. This allows us to dismiss the existence of the bct Fe phase under the high-pressure high-temperature conditions of the Earth's inner core.
In order to reveal structural trends with increasing pressure in d transition metals, we performed full potential linear muffin-tin orbital calculations for Fe, Ru, and Os in the hexagonal close packed structure. The calculations cover a wide volume range and demonstrate that all these hexagonal close-packed metals have non-ideal c/a at low pressures which, however, increases with pressure and asymptotically approaches the ideal value at very high compressions. These results are in accordance with most recent experiment for Ru and Os. The experimental data for iron is not conclusive, but it is believed that the c/a ratio decreases weakly with increasing pressure at moderate compression. Since, the experimental and calculated equations of state for iron are in increasingly good agreement with increasing pressure, it is possible that either the negative c/a trend is valid only for a restricted pressure range, or related to the experimental difficulties (e.g. non-hydrostaticity).
The issue of melting of pure iron and iron alloyed with lighter elements at high pressure is critical to the physics of the Earth. The iron melting curve in the relevant pressure range between 3 and 4 Mbar is reasonably well established from the theoretical point of view. However, so far no one attempted a direct atomistic simulation of iron alloyed with light elements. We investigate here the impact of alloying the body-centered cubic (bcc) Fe with Si. We simulate melting of the bcc Fe and Fe0.9375Si0.0625 alloy by ab initio molecular dynamics. The addition of light elements to the hexagonal-close-packed (hcp) iron is known to depress its melting temperature (T-m). We obtain, in marked contrast, that alloying of bcc Fe with Si does not lead to T-m depression; on the contrary, the T-m slightly increases. This suggests that if Si is a typical impurity in the Earth's inner core, then the stable phase in the core is bcc rather than hcp.
Earth's solid-iron inner core has a low rigidity that manifests itself in the anomalously low velocities of shear waves as compared to shear wave velocities measured in iron alloys. Normally, when estimating the elastic properties of a polycrystal, one calculates an average over different orientations of a single crystal. This approach does not take into account the grain boundaries and defects that are likely to be abundant at high temperatures relevant for the inner core conditions. By using molecular dynamics simulations, we show that, if defects are considered, the calculated shear modulus and shear wave velocity decrease dramatically as compared to those estimates obtained from the averaged single-crystal values. Thus, the low shear wave velocity in the inner core is explained.
Earth's solid- iron inner core is elastically anisotropic. Sound waves propagate faster along Earth's spin axis than in the equatorial plane. This anisotropy has previously been explained by a preferred orientation of the iron alloy hexagonal crystals. However, hexagonal iron becomes increasingly isotropic on increasing temperature at pressures of the inner core and is therefore unlikely to cause the anisotropy. An alternative explanation, supported by diamond anvil cell experiments, is that iron adopts a body- centered cubic form in the inner core. We show, by molecular dynamics simulations, that the body- centered cubic iron phase is extremely anisotropic to sound waves despite its high symmetry. Direct simulations of seismic wave propagation reveal an anisotropy of 12%, a value adequate to explain the anisotropy of the inner core.
Ab initio total energy calculations based on the exact muffin-tin orbitals method, combined with the coherent potential approximation, have been used to study the thermodynamical and elastic properties of substitutional refractory Ru1-xNixAl alloys. We have found that the elastic constants C-' and C-11 exhibit pronounced peculiarities near the concentration of about 40 at. % Ni, which we ascribe to electronic topological transitions. Our suggestion is supported by the Fermi surface calculations in the whole concentration range. Results of our calculations show that one can design Ru-Ni-Al alloys substituting Ru by Ni (up to 40 at. %) with almost invariable elastic constants and reduced density.
The results of scanning tunneling spectroscopy of the electronic states of Au nanoclusters on the graphite surface are presented. The tunneling current is found to be different at different points of a rough-surface nano-cluster. The measured differential current-voltage curve of the clusters is nonmonotonic near the Fermi energy, and the tunneling conductance decreases by almost a factor of two as the cluster volume changes from I to 0.1 mm(3). This decrease can be associated with the change in the density of the electronic states near the Fermi energy. The observed features are qualitatively described within the framework of the mechanism of electron localization in disordered systems.
The transport properties of one-dimensional (1D) systems have been studied theoretically. Contradictory experimental results on molecular transport in quasi-1D systems, such as zeolite structures, when both diffusion transport acceleration and the existence of the diffusion mode with lower particle mobility (single-file diffusion (< x(2)> similar to t(1/2))) have been reported, are consolidated in a consistent model. Transition from the single-file diffusion mode to an Einstein-like diffusion < x(2)> similar to t with diffusion coefficient increasing with the density has been predicted to occur at large observation times.
The properties of monoatomic chains have been studied theoretically by means of statistical mechanics methods. The applied approach can be used to evaluate the interatomic distances and lifetimes of one-dimensional (1D) and quasi-1D systems. In particular, we show that the 1D clusters of gold atoms can exist in two states with different lattice parameters (similar to 3.6 and similar to 2.8 angstrom) that can explain the whole variety of experimental observations on monoatomic gold chains without assuming any wire contamination.
Changes in the electronic structure of Yb, a material whose valence is modified under pressure, are observed with remarkable detail in x-ray absorption and emission data measured between ambient conditions and 20 GPa. These changes are reproduced by a theory that essentially does not rely on experimental parameters, and includes dynamical core-hole screening. From the combined experimental and theoretical data we can firmly establish on a quantitative level how the valency of an intermediate valence material is modified by pressure. In metallic Yb it increases from 2 to 2.55 +/- 0.05 between 0 and 20 GPa.
The diffusion statistics of atoms in a crystal close to the critical superheating temperature was studied in detail using molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations. We present a continuous random-walk model for diffusion of atoms hopping through thermal vacancies. The results obtained from our model suggest that the limit of superheating is precisely the temperature for which dynamic percolation happens at the time scale of a single individual jump. A possible connection between the critical superheating limit and the maximization of the Shannon entropy associated with the distribution of jumps is suggested. As a practical application of our results, we show that an extrapolation of the critical superheating temperature (and therefore an estimation of the melting point) can be performed using only the dynamical properties of the solid state.
The melting point for the tetragonal and cubic phases of zirconia (ZrO2) was computed using Z-method microcanonical molecular dynamics simulations for two different interaction models: the empirical Lewis-Catlow potential versus the relatively new reactive force field (ReaxFF) model. While both models reproduce the stability of the cubic phase over the tetragonal phase at high temperatures, ReaxFF also gives approximately the correct melting point, around 2900 K, whereas the Lewis-Catlow estimate is above 6000 K.
We present an implementation of a stochastic optimization algorithm applied to location of atomic vacancies. Our method labels an empty point in space as a vacancy site, if the total spatial overlap of a "virtual sphere", centered around the point, with the surrounding atoms (and other vacancies) falls below a tolerance parameter. A Metropolis-like algorithm displaces the vacancies randomly, using an "overlap temperature" parameter to allow for acceptance of moves into regions with higher overlap, thus avoiding local minima. Once the algorithm has targeted a point with low overlap, the overlap temperature is decreased, and the method works as a steepest descent optimization. Our method, with only two free parameters, is able to detect the correct number and coordinates of vacancies in a wide spectrum of condensed-matter systems, from crystals to amorphous solids, in fact in any given set of atomic coordinates, without any need of comparison with a reference initial structure.
The melting curve of hydrogen was computed for pressures up to 200 GPa, using molecular dynamics. The inter- and intramolecular interactions were described by the reactive force field (ReaxFF) model. The model describes the pressure-volume equation of state solid hydrogen in good agreement with experiment up to pressures over 150 GPa, however the corresponding equation of state for liquid deviates considerably from density functional theory calculations. Due to this, the computed melting curve, although shares most of the known features, yields considerably lower melting temperatures compared to extrapolations of the available diamond anvil cell data. This failure of the ReaxFF model, which can reproduce many physical and chemical properties (including chemical reactions in hydrocarbons) of solid hydrogen, hints at an important change in the mechanism of interaction of hydrogen molecules in the liquid state.
We compare the performances of three common gradient-level exchange-correlation functionals for metallic bulk, surface and vacancy systems. We find that approximations which, by construction, give similar results for the jellium surface, show large deviations for realistic systems. The particular charge density and density gradient dependence of the exchange-correlation energy densities are shown to be the reason behind the obtained differences. Our findings confirm that both the global (total energy) and the local (energy density) behavior of the exchange-correlation functional should be monitored for a consistent functional design.
Using the exact muffin-tin orbitals method, we investigate the accuracy of five common density functional approximations for the theoretical description of the formation energy of monovacancies in three close-packed metals. Besides the local density approximation (LDA), we consider two generalized gradient approximation developed by Perdew and co-workers (PBE and PBEsol) and two gradient-level functionals obtained within the subsystem functional approach (AM05 and LAG). As test cases, we select aluminum, nickel, and copper, all of them adopting the face centered cubic crystallographic structure. Our results show that, compared to the recommended experimental values, LDA is be the most reliable approximation for the vacancy formation energies in these metals. However, taking into account also the performances of the functionals for the equation of state changes the final verdict in favor of the generalized gradient approximations.
Using first-principles alloy theory, we calculate the vacancy formation energies of paramagnetic face-centered-cubic (fcc) Fe-Cr-Ni alloys as a function of chemical composition. These alloys are well-known model systems for low carbon austenitic stainless steels. The theoretical predictions obtained for homogeneous chemistry and relaxed nearest-neighbor lattice sites are in line with the experimental observations. In particular, Ni is found to decrease and Cr to increase the vacancy formation energy of the ternary system. The results are interpreted in terms of effective chemical potentials. The impact of vacancy on the local magnetic properties of austenitic steel alloys is also investigated.
Landau phenomenological theory in combination with first-principles calculations was used to reveal the origin of the metamagnetic nature and the unusually strong dependence of the ordering temperature with doping of the Fe2P compound. We show that the magnetism of the two sublattices occupied by Fe atoms has an entwined codependency, which is strongly influenced by alloying. We furthermore demonstrate that a constrained disordered local moment approach combined with Monte Carlo simulations can only reproduce the experimental ordering temperatures in these technologically important prototype alloys for magnetocaloric refrigeration.
Ab initio electronic-structure methods are used to study the properties of Fe2P1-xSix in ferromagnetic and paramagnetic states. The site preference and lattice relaxation are calculated with the projector augmented wave method as implemented in the Vienna ab initio simulation package. The paramagnetic state is modeled by the disordered local magnetic moment scheme, and the chemical and magnetic disorder is treated using the coherent potential approximation in combination with the exact muffin-tin orbital formalism. The calculated lattice parameters, atomic positions, and magnetic properties are in good agreement with the experimental and other theoretical results. In contrast to the observation, for the ferromagnetic state the body centered ortho-rhombic structure (bco, space group I (mm2) under bar) is predicted to have lower energy than the hexagonal structure (hex, space group P (6) over bar 2m). The zero-point spin fluctuation energy difference is found to be large enough to stabilize the hex phase. For the paramagnetic state, the hex structure is calculated to be the stable phase and the computed total energy versus composition indicates a hex to bco crystallographic phase transition with increasing Si content. The phonon vibrational free energy, estimated from the theoretical equation of state, turns out to stabilize the hexagonal phase, whereas the electronic and magnetic entropies favor the low symmetry orthorhombic structure.