Theoretical investigation of the phase stability of intermetallic compounds by CVM and PPM

Theoretical investigations on the phase stability of intermetallic compounds are categorized into three groups: studies for the ground-state stability, the relative stability at finite temperatures and time evolution and devolution kinetics in a non-equilibrium state. Electronic structure calculations, the cluster variation method and the path probability method are proposed as potential theoretical tools, respectively, for each category. A number of examples of our previous calculations are presented to demonstrate that these methods are fully compatible and provide a sound basis for a general framework of the phase stability theory of intermetallic compounds.