Structure and thermodynamic properties of liquid rare earth metals: an embedded atom method approach

Effective pair potentials for liquid rare earth metals have been derived from the embedded atom method approach. Liquid structure and thermodynamic properties namely the Helmholtz free energy, internal energy, and entropy are calculated using the above potentials. A good agreement with the experimental data for structure, free and internal energies has been found. Results of entropies across the lanthanide series show a systematic difference between the calculated and experimental values. The difference reveals that the electronic plus magnetic contribution to the entropy is important in the case of liquid rare earth metals. This discrepancy also indicates that the present EAM scheme is unable to account properly for the above two contributions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.