TY - JOUR A1 - Tehranchi, Ali A1 - Zhang, S. A1 - Zendegani, A. A1 - Hickel, Tilmann A1 - Neugebauer, J. A1 - Scheu, C. T1 - Metastable defect phase diagrams as roadmap to tailor chemically driven defect formation N2 - Thermodynamic bulk phase diagrams have become the roadmap used by researchers to identify alloy compositions and process conditions that result in novel materials with tailored properties. Recent experimental studies show that changes in the alloy composition can drive not only transitions in the bulk phases present in a material, but also in the concentration and type of defects they contain. Defect phase diagrams in combination with density functional theory provide a natural route to study these chemically driven defects. Our results reveal, however, that direct application of equilibrium bulk thermodynamics can fail to reproduce experimentally observed defect formation. Therefore, we extend the concept to metastable defect phase diagrams to account for kinetic limitations that prevent the system from reaching equilibrium. We apply this concept to successfully explain the formation of large concentrations of planar defects in supersaturated Fe-Nb solid solutions. We then utilize it to design suitable conditions for synthesis, which we subsequently realized experimentally, successfully validating the formation of the predicted defects in Mg-Al-Ca alloys. The concept offers new avenues for the design of materials performance by tailoring defect structures. KW - Metastable defect phase diagram KW - Ab initio thermodynamics KW - Chemical potential KW - Laves phases KW - Transmission electron microscopy PY - 2024 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2024.120145 SN - 1359-6454 VL - 277 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-61803 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mendive Tapia, Eduardo A1 - Patrick, Christopher E A1 - Hickel, Tilmann A1 - Neugebauer, Jörg A1 - Staunton, Julie B T1 - Quantification of electronic and magnetoelastic mechanisms of first-order magnetic phase transitions from first principles: application to caloric effects in La(FexSi1-x)(13) N2 - La(FexSi1−x)13 and derived quaternary compounds are well-known for their giant, tunable, magneto- and barocaloric responses around a first-order paramagnetic-ferromagnetic transition near room temperature with low hysteresis. Remarkably, such a transition shows a large spontaneous volume change together with itinerant electron metamagnetic features. While magnetovolume effects are well-established mechanisms driving first-order transitions, purely electronic sources have a long, subtle history and remain poorly understood. Here we apply a disordered local moment picture to quantify electronic and magnetoelastic effects at finite temperature in La(FexSi1−x)13 from first-principles. We obtain results in very good agreement with experiment and demonstrate that the magnetoelastic coupling, rather than purely electronic mechanisms, drives the first-order character and causes at the same time a huge electronic entropy contribution to the caloric response. KW - Caloric effects KW - Ab initio thermodynamics KW - Magnetoeleastic couplin PY - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-587882 DO - https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7655/acd027 SN - 2515-7655 VL - 5 IS - 3 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - IOP Publishing AN - OPUS4-58788 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -