Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The Metropolis Monte Carlo (MMC) algorithm is a computational method to study equilibrium thermodynamic properties of a system at the atomic level. The algorithm accounts for all terms that contribute to defining the free energy difference between states: not only chemical, configurational and interfacial, but also due to strain fields and thermal vibrations. In this work, the MMC method with a two bands empirical many-body potential is used to predict the ordering properties of Fe1-xCrx alloys at various compositions and temperatures in the absence of defects. The particular goal of the work was to reveal the effect of atomic relaxations and vibrations on the phase diagram. It is found that vibrations and local relaxation effects contribute to lowering the order-disorder transition temperature by about 25 percent as compared to MMC predictions with a rigid lattice.