First Principles Study of U-Al System Ground State

Formation energies of the binary intermetallic compounds UAln (n = 2, 3, 4) have been evaluated in the frame of the Density Functional Theory (DFT) using a pseudopotentials method implemented in the Vienna Ab-initio Simulation Package (VASP) code with spin polarized approximation and spin orbit coupling. As a side issue within this work, we analyzed the spin and orbital magnetic moments of uranium ions in the respective intermetallic compounds