An ab initio study of interfacial energies between group IV transition metal carbides and bcc Iron

Abstract

This paper describes an ab Initio study on interface energies, misfit strain energies, and electron structures at coherent interfaces Fe(bcc structure)/MCs(NaCl structure M=Ti, Zr, Hf). The interface energies at relaxed interfaces Fe/TiC, Fe/ZrC and Fe/HfC were 0.263, 0.153 and <TEX>$0.271 J/m^2$</TEX>, respectively. It was understood that the dependence of interface energy on the type of carbide was closely related to changes of the binding energies between Fe, M and C atoms before and after formation of the interfaces Fe/MCs with the help of the DLP/NNBB (Discrete Lattice Plane/ Nearest Neighbour Broken Bond) model and data of the electron structures. The misfit strain energies in Fe/TiC, Fe/ZrC and Fe/HfC systems were 0.390, 1.692 and 1.408 eV per 16 atoms(Fe: 8 atoms and MC; 8 atoms). More misfit energy was generated as difference of lattice parameters between the bulk Fe and the bulk MCs increased.