First-principles study on ferrite/TiC heterogeneous nucleation interface

Interface atomic structure, bonding character, cohesive energy and interfacial energy of ferrite (1 0 0)/TiC (1 0 0) were studied using a first-principles density functional plane-wave ultrasoft pseudopotential method. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of TiC as the heterogeneous nuclei of ferrite was analyzed. The results indicated that, TiC bonding is dominated by the C-2p, C-2s and Ti-3d electrons, which exhibits high covalency. With increase of the atomic layers, the interfacial energies of ferrite and TiC are both declined rapidly and stabilized gradually. There are two binding modes for TiC as the heterogeneous nuclei of ferrite, which are Fe atoms above the Ti atoms (Ti-termination) and Fe atoms above the C atoms (C-termination). Interfacial energy of the Ti-termination is larger than that of the C-termination, which means that for Fe atoms above the C atoms, the ability of TiC promotes ferrite heterogeneous nucleation on its surface is larger than that for Fe atoms above the Ti atoms.

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► Interface stability of ferrite (1 0 0)/TiC (1 0 0) was studied.
► The effectiveness of TiC as the heterogeneous nuclei of ferrite was analyzed.
► Ti-termination and C-termination are the two binding modes for ferrite/TiC interface.
► Interfacial energy of the Ti-termination is larger than that of the C-termination.
► On C-termination, ability of TiC promotes ferrite heterogeneous nucleation is strong.