Liquid structure as a guide for phase stability in the solid state: Discovery of a stable compound in the Au–Si alloy system

A new crystalline ground state was discovered in the Au–Si system through first-principles electronic structure calculations. The new structure was found using the experimentally and theoretically determined local atomic structure in the liquid as a guide for the solid state. Local atomic structure in the liquid was matched with that for all known crystal structures as compiled in the Pauling File structural database. The best matching crystalline structures were then explicitly calculated using first-principles methods. Most candidate crystal structures were found to be close, but above the enthalpy of a composition weighted average of the face-centered cubic Au and diamond structure Si terminal phases, but one crystal structure was more stable than the terminal phases by about 10 meV atom–1 at T = 0 K. As first-principles simulations of local structure are feasible for most liquid alloys, the present methodology is applicable to other alloys lying near a eutectic composition.