Experimental and theoretical evidence of charge transfer in multi-component alloys - how chemical interactions reduce atomic size mismatch

Ab initio simulations of a multi-component alloy using density functional theory (DFT) were combined with experiments on thin films of the same material using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to study the connection between the electronic and atomic structures of multi-component alloys. The DFT simulations were performed on an equimolar HfNbTiVZr multi-component alloy. Structure and charge transfer were evaluated using relaxed, non-relaxed, as well as elemental reference structures. The use of a fixed sphere size model allowed quantification of charge transfer, and separation into different contributions. The charge transfer was generally found to follow electronegativity trends and results in a reduced size mismatch between the elements, and thus causes a considerable reduction of the lattice distortions compared to a traditional assumption based on tabulated atomic radii. A calculation of the average deviation from the average radius (i.e. the so-called delta-parameter) based on the atomic Voronoi volumes gave a reduction of delta from ca. 6% (using the volumes in elemental reference phases) to ca. 2% (using the volumes in the relaxed multi-component alloy phase). The reliability of the theoretical results was confirmed by XPS measurements of a Hf22Nb19Ti18V19Zr21 thin film deposited by sputter deposition. The experimentally observed core level binding energy shifts (CLS), as well as peak broadening due to a range of chemical surroundings, for each element showed good agreement with the calculated DFT values. The single solid solution phase of the sample was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) including energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) with nm-resolution. These observations show that the HfNbTiVZr solid solution phase is non-ideal, and that chemical bonding plays an important part in the structure formation, and presumably also in the properties. Our conclusions should be transferable to other multi-component alloy systems, as well as some other multi-component material systems, and open up interesting possibilities for the design of material properties via the electronic structure and controlled charge transfer between selected metallic elements in the materials.

Automated summary

The study combined ab initio simulations of a multi-component alloy using density functional theory (DFT) with experiments on thin films of the same material using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to investigate the electronic and atomic structures. The simulations showed that charge transfer in the equimolar HfNbTiVZr multi-component alloy followed electronegativity trends, leading to reduced lattice distortions compared to traditional assumptions based on tabulated atomic radii. Experimental validation was conducted using XPS measurements, showing good agreement with the calculated DFT values and confirming a non-ideal solid solution phase for HfNbTiVZr.