Phase Diagram Features Associated with Multicritical Points in Alloy Systems

Abstract

ABSTRACTMany features in the vicinity of critical points in phase diagrams can be illustrated using a Landau type free energy expansion as a power series in one or more order parameters and composition. This simple approach can be used with any solution model. It also predicts limits to metastability, and is useful for understanding mechanisms of phase change. The theory is applied to all the critical points that can occur in binary systems according to a Landau theory: critical consolute points, order-disorder transitions, tricritical points, critical end points, as well as to systems in which two transitions such as chemical and magnetic ordering occur.