Alloying effects on the stacking fault energy in austenitic stainless steels from first-principles theory

The stacking fault energy (SFE) of austenitic stainless steels has been determined using a quantum mechanical first-principles approach. We identify the electronic, magnetic and volume effects responsible for the compositional dependence of the SFE. We find that both the alloying element and the composition of the host material are important for understanding the alloying effects. Our results show that no simple and universally valid composition equations exist for the SFE.