Stability and structures of constitutional defects in nonstoichiometric intermetallic compounds by first-principles calculations

Some of intermetallic compounds exist in a wide range of concentration around the stoichiometric composition. First-principles electronic structure calculations have been performed for constitutional defects in non-stoichiometric CoAl and CoTi in order to investigate their stabilities and structural relaxations induced by constitutional defects. For the evaluation of stabilities of constitutional defects, the compositional dependence curves both of formation energies and of lattice parameters are obtained by the calculations employing supercells in various sizes. The lattice relaxations around constitutional defects are discussed by analyzing the change in electronic structures induced by constitutional defects.