Thermodynamic Modeling of the Ge-Nd Binary System

The Ge-Nd has been critically assessed by means of the CALculation of PHAse Diagram (CALPHAD) technique. For the liquid phase, the associate model was used with the constituent species Ge, Nd, Ge3Nd5 and Ge1.6Nd in the Ge-Nd system. The terminal solid solution diamond-(Ge), dhcp-(Nd) and bcc_A2-(Nd) in the Ge-Nd system were described using the substitutional model, in which the excess Gibbs energy was formulated with the Redlich-Kister equation. The compounds with homogeneity ranges, α(Ge1.6Nd), β(Ge1.6Nd), (GeNd), (Ge4Nd5) and (Ge3Nd5) were modeled using two sublattices as α(Ge,Nd)1.6Nd, β(Ge,Nd)1.6Nd, (Ge,Nd)Nd, (Ge,Nd)4Nd5 and (Ge,Nd)3Nd5, respectively. A set of self-consistent thermodynamic parameters for each of the Ge-Nd binary systems was obtained. The calculation results agree well with the available experimental data from literatures.