Ab initio study of energetics and structures of heterophase interfaces: from coherent to semicoherent interfaces

Density functional theory calculations have been performed to study the structures and energetics of coherent and semicoherent TiC/Fe interfaces. A systematic method for determining the interfacial energy for the semicoherent interface with misfit dislocation network has been developed. The obtained interfacial energies are used to calculate the aspect ratios for the disc-like precipitates and a quantitative agreement with the experimental results is reached. Based on the obtained interfacial energies and atomic structure details, we propose models for describing the evolution of the interfacial energy with respect to the size of TiC precipitate for heterogeneous nucleation on an edge dislocation, shedding light on the thermodynamics of precipitate nucleation and growth. The present method can be easily applied to any heterophase interfaces between metals and oxides/carbides/nitrides.