Stability of LS and LS2 crystal structures in binary mixtures of hard and charged spheres

Abstract

We study by computer simulations the stability of various crystal structures in a binary mixture of large and small spheres interacting either with a hard sphere or a screened-Coulomb potential. In the case of hard-core systems, we consider structures that have atomic prototypes CrB, gammaCuTi, alphaIrV, HgBr2, AuTe2, Ag2Se and the Laves phases (MgCu2, MgNi2, and MgZn2) as well as a structure with space group symmetry 74. By utilizing Monte Carlo simulations to calculate Gibbs free energies, we determine composition versus pressure and constant volume phase diagrams for diameter ratios of q=0.74, 0.76, 0.8, 0.82, 0.84, and 0.85 for the small and large spheres. For diameter ratios 0.76 < or = q < or = 0.84, we find the Laves phases to be stable with respect to the other crystal structures that we considered and the fluid mixture. By extrapolating to the thermodynamic limit, we show that the MgZn2 structure is the most stable one of the Laves structures. We also calculate phase diagrams for equally and oppositely charged spheres for size ratio of 0.73 taking into consideration the Laves phases and CsCl. In the case of equally charged spheres, we find a pocket of stable Laves phases, while in the case of oppositely charged spheres, Laves phases are found to be metastable with respect to the CsCl and fluid phases.