Ordered Phases in Fe-Si Alloys: A First-Principles Study

It is known that the formation of ordered phases causes the brittleness of electrical steels. We employed first-principles method in order to examine the possibility of the ordered-phases formation in Fe-Si alloys. It is found that the D0 3 -like ordered configuration is most stable among other atomic configurations in the ferromagnetic state. In the paramagnetic state, for low Si concentration, the stability of the ordered configurations is comparable to that of disordered ones. However, as Si content increases, the B2 ordered phase as well as the D0 3 phase becomes more stable than the disordered ones.