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Structural, elastic and thermal properties of cementite (Fe3C) were studied using a Modified Embedded Atom Method (MEAM) potential for iron-carbon (Fe-C) alloys. Previously developed Fe and C single element potentials were used to develop a Fe-C alloy MEAM potential, using a statistically-based optimization scheme to reproduce structural and elastic properties of cementite, the interstitial energies of C in bcc Fe as well as heat of formation of Fe-C alloys in L12 and B1 structures. The stability of cementite was investigated by molecular dynamics simulations at high temperatures. The nine single crystal elastic constants for cementite were obtained by computing total energies for strained cells. Polycrystalline elastic moduli for cementite were calculated from the single crystal elastic constants of cementite. The formation energies of (001), (010), and (100) surfaces of cementite were also calculated. The melting temperature and the variation of specific heat and volume with respect to temperature were investigated by performing a two-phase (solid/liquid) molecular dynamics simulation of cementite. The predictions of the potential are in good agreement with first-principles calculations and experiments.

We study the physical properties of ZnX (X =O, S, Se, Te) and CdX (X =O, S, Se, Te) in the zincblende, rock-salt, and wurtzite structures using the recently developed fully ab initio pseudo-hybrid Hubbard density functional ACBN0. We find that both the electronic and vibrational properties of these wide-band gap semiconductors are systematically improved over the PBE values and reproduce closely the experimental measurements. Similar accuracy is found for the structural parameters, especially the bulk modulus. ACBN0 results compare well with hybrid functional calculations at a fraction of the computational cost.

We study the site occupancy and magnetic properties of Zn-Sn substituted M -type Sr-hexaferrite SrFe12−x(Zn0.5Sn0.5)xO19 with x = 1 using first-principles total-energy calculations. We find that in the lowest-energy configuration Zn 2+ and Sn 4+ ions preferentially occupy the 4f1 and 4f2 sites, respectively, in contrast to the model previously suggested by Ghasemi et al. [J. Appl. Phys, 107, 09A734 (2010)], where Zn 2+ and Sn 4+ ions occupy the 2b and 4f2 sites. Density-functional theory calculations show that our model has a lower total energy by more than 0.2 eV per unit cell compared to Ghasemi's model. More importantly, the latter does not show an increase in saturation magnetization (Ms) compared to the pure M -type Sr-hexaferrite, in disagreement with the experiment. On the other hand, our model correctly predicts a rapid increase in Ms as well as a decrease in magnetic anisotropy compared to the pure M -type Sr-hexaferrite, consistent with experimental measurements.

We use first-principles total-energy calculations based on density functional theory to study the site occupancy and magnetic properties of Al-substituted M -type strontium hexaferrite SrFe12−xAlxO19 with x = 0.5 and x = 1.0. We find that the non-magnetic Al 3+ ions preferentially replace Fe 3+ ions at two of the majority spin sites, 2a and 12k, eliminating their positive contribution to the total magnetization causing the saturation magnetization Ms to be reduced as Al concentration x is increased. Our formation probability analysis further provides the explanation for increased magnetic anisotropy field when the fraction of Al is increased. Although Al 3+ ions preferentially occupy the 2a sites at a low temperature, the occupation probability of the 12k site increases with the rise of the temperature. At a typical annealing temperature (> 700 • C) Al 3+ ions are much more likely to occupy the 12k site than the 2a site. Although this causes the magnetocrystalline anisotropy K1 to be reduced slightly, the reduction in Ms is much more significant. Their combined effect causes the anisotropy field Ha to increase as the fraction of Al is increased, consistent with recent experimental measurements.[4] decreased coercivity. However, the coercivity of the M-type hexaferrites is not increased significantly by these cation substitutions, and is still much smaller than that of Nd-Fe-B magnet [15].Al substitution in the M-type hexaferrite has been more effective in enhancing coercivity [16][17][18][19][20]. Particularly, Wang et al synthesized Al-doped SFO SrFe 12−x Al x O 19 (SFAO) with Al content of x = 0 − 4 using glycinnitrate method and subsequent annealing in a temperature over 700 • C obtaining the largest coercivity of 17.570 kOe, which is much larger than that of SFO (5.356 kOe) and exceeds even the coercivity of the Nd 2 Fe 17 B (15.072 kOe) [1]. Wang and co-workers also observed that the coercivity of the SFAO increases with increasing Al concentration at a fixed annealing temperature. These results call for a systematic understanding, from first principles, of why certain combinations of dopants lead to particular results. This theoretical understanding will be essential in systematically tailoring the properties of SFO.

General theory of semi-empirical potential methods including embedded-atom method and modified-embedded-atom method (MEAM) is reviewed. The procedures to construct these potentials are also reviewed. A multi-objective optimization (MOO) procedure has been developed to construct MEAM potentials with minimal manual fitting. This procedure has been applied successfully to develop a new MEAM potential for magnesium. The MOO procedure is designed to optimally reproduce multiple target values that consist of important material properties obtained from experiments and first-principle calculations based on density-functional theory. The optimized target quantities include elastic constants, cohesive energies, surface energies, vacancy-formation energies, and the forces on atoms in a variety of structures. The accuracy of the present potential is assessed by computing several material properties of Mg including their thermal properties. We found that the new MEAM potential shows a significant improvement over previously published potentials, especially for the atomic forces and melting temperature calculations.

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