title: Evidence of large magnetostructural effects in austenitic stainless steels.
abstract: The surprisingly low magnetic transition temperatures in austenitic stainless steels indicate that in these Fe-based alloys magnetic disorder might be present at room temperature. Using a first-principles approach, we have obtained a theoretical description of the stacking fault energy in Fe(100-c-n)Cr(c)Ni(n) alloys as a function of composition and temperature. Comparison of our results with experimental databases provides a strong evidence for large magnetic fluctuations in these materials. We demonstrate that the effects of alloying additions on the structural properties of steels contain a dominant magnetic contribution, which stabilizes the most common austenitic steels at normal service conditions.
authors.affiliation: Applied Materials Physics, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, SE-10044 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Vitos
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Korzhavyi
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Johansson