First principles calculations: The elemental transition metals and their compounds

Abstract

If done with sufficient care, present day a priori theory yields calculated enthalpies of formation whose agreement with experiment (when such data is available) is of the order of the experimental scatter. Comparisons will be made for the Pt-Ti system for which such data exist and for which one crystal structure involves atomic sites of low symmetry. Two other cases will be considered for which there is no direct experimental heats data. The first of these will be the structural stabilities of the 4d elemental metals. Such structural stabilities have been an issue of contention between electronic structure theorists and those who construct phase diagrams for some 25 years. The second involves the energetics of forming metal adlayers and artificial multilayers. The distortion energies associated with the requirement that adlayers (or multilayers) conform to some given substrate are often the controlling factors in the fabrication of multilayer materials. This contribution is best understood by invoking a combination of elemental structural promotion energies plus elastic distortions from these structures. As will be seen, the fabrication of multilayers also involves a term not normally encountered in bulk phase diagram considerations, namely the difference in surface energies of the two multilayer constituents.