Phase diagram studies on iron and nickel silicides: high-pressure experiments and ab initio calculations

Abstract

We performed high-pressure ADXRD studies on Fe5Si3 and Ni2Si up to 75 GPa. No evidence of the occurrence of a phase transition was observed in them. Fe5Si3 was found to compress isotropically, but an anisotropic compression was observed in Ni2Si. These results are supported by ab initio total-energy calculations, which for Fe5Si3 also predicted a transition at 283 GPa from the hexagonal P63/mcm phase to a cubic phase. High-pressure melting studies were conducted on FeSi up to 70 GPa. We found a change in the melting slope at 12 GPa, which is attributed to the intersection of the melting curve with the phase boundary between epsilon-FeSi and CsCl-type FeSi. Finally, an equation of state for Fe5Si3 and Ni2Si is reported.