Publications
Thermodynamic modelling of chromium: strong and weak magnetic coupling
F. Körmann, B. Grabowski, P. Söderlind, M. Palumbo, S. G. Fries, T. Hickel, J. Neugebauer.
Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 25, 425401, (2013)
Abstract
As chromium is a decisive ingredient for stainless steels, a reliable understanding of its thermodynamic properties is indispensable. Parameter-free first-principles methods have nowadays evolved to a state allowing such thermodynamic predictions. For materials such as Cr, however, the inclusion of magnetic entropy and higher order contributions such as anharmonic entropy is still a formidable task. Employing state-of-the-art ab initio molecular dynamics simulations and statistical concepts, we compute a set of thermodynamic properties based on quasiharmonic, anharmonic, electronic and magnetic free energy contributions from first principles. The magnetic contribution is modeled by an effective nearest-neighbor Heisenberg model, which itself is solved numerically exactly by means of a quantum Monte Carlo method. We investigate two different scenarios: a weak magnetic coupling scenario for Cr, as usually presumed in empirical thermodynamic models, turns out to be in clear disagreement with experimental observations. We show that instead a mixed Hamiltonian including weak and strong magnetic coupling provides a consistent picture with good agreement to experimental thermodynamic data.
DOI: 10.1088/0953-8984/25/42/425401
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