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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 developed new modified embedded-atom method (MEAM) interatomic potentials for the MgAl alloy system using a first-principles method based on density functional theory (DFT). The materials parameters, such as the cohesive energy, equilibrium atomic volume, and bulk modulus, were used to determine the MEAM parameters. Face-centered cubic, hexagonal close packed, and cubic rock salt structures were used as the reference structures for Al, Mg, and MgAl, respectively. The applicability of the new MEAM potentials to atomistic simulations for investigating Mg-Al alloys was demonstrated by performing simulations on Mg and Al atoms in a variety of geometries. The new MEAM potentials were used to calculate the adsorption energies of Al and Mg atoms on Al (111) and Mg (0001) surfaces. The formation energies and geometries of various point defects, such as vacancies, interstitial defects and substitutional defects, were also calculated. We found that the new MEAM potentials give a better overall agreement with DFT calculations and experiments when compared against the previously published MEAM potentials.

We use density-functional theory to study the structure of AlSb(001) and GaSb(001) surfaces. Based on a variety of reconstruction models, we construct surface stability diagrams for AlSb and GaSb under different growth conditions. For AlSb(001), the predictions are in excellent agreement with experimentally observed reconstructions. For GaSb(001), we show that previously proposed model accounts for the experimentally observed reconstructions under Ga-rich growth conditions, but fails to explain the experimental observations under Sb-rich conditions. We propose a new model that has a substantially lower surface energy than all (n×5)-like reconstructions proposed previously and that, in addition, leads to a simulated STM image in better agreement with experiment than existing models. However, this new model has higher surface energy than some of (4×3)-like reconstructions, models with periodicity that has not been observed. Hence we conclude that the experimentally observed (1×5) and (2×5) structures on GaSb(001) are kinetically limited rather than at the ground state.

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.