A critical consideration of magnetism and composition of (bcc) Cu precipitates in (bcc) Fe

Abstract

Atom probe and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) measurements were carried out in order to investigate the chemical composition of (bcc) Cu precipitates in a (bcc) Fe matrix. The ratio of nuclear and magnetic integrated intensities (R-value) found by SANS is compared to a theoretical model which is based on the chemical composition obtained from the atom probe data. Furthermore, density functional theory calculations were performed to derive the magnetic moment per atom and the lattice parameters of the Cu alloys modeled in terms of supercells. The calculated and measured R-values agree rather well suggesting that Fe atoms are incorporated in the Cu precipitates up to concentrations of about 50 at.%.