Effect of alloying on the Fermi surface of magnesium. II. Pseudopotential model

Abstract

Fermi-surface results in pure Mg, in alloys of Mg with 0.57 at.% Li and with 0.2 at.% In have been fit by a ten-plane-wave nonlocal-pseudopotential model with an accuracy of about 1%. The only adjustable parameter in each alloy is the Fermi level and this is determined by fitting a single de Haas-van Alphen frequency. It is found that changes in the Fermi surface arise from the shift of Fermi level, from lattice-spacing changes and from the effect of explicitly including the solute pseudopotential. Estimates of the Fermi-surface volume enable the hole and electron carrier concentrations in each alloy to be determined and show that the effective valence difference is very close to -1 and +1, respectively, for Li and for In.