Feature Article: Thermodynamic properties from ab‐initio calculations: New theoretical developments, and applications to various materials systems

Abstract The cover picture from the Feature Article [1] depicts the calculated landscape of lowest formation energies for the ternary compound system Ni–Fe–Al. The figure shows for each composition the difference in the formation energy (in meV/atom) for the respective homogeneous configuration with lowest energy on the bcc and the fcc parent lattice. The phases on the fcc lattice dominate the Ni‐ and Al‐rich regions of the Gibbs triangle. The first author Manfred Fähnle is Professor at the University of Stuttgart and member of the theory group of the department of Prof. Schütz at the Max‐Planck‐Institut für Metallforschung in Stuttgart. In 1980 he was awarded with the Otto‐Hahn medal of the Max‐Planck Society and in 1985 he received the Academy Award for Physics of the University of Göttingen. His present research interests are the static and dynamic properties of bulk and nanostructured magnetic systems, as well as the ab‐initio statistical mechanics of alloys.