First-principles calculations of properties of orthorhombic iron carbide Fe7C3 at the Earth's core conditions

A recently discovered phase of orthorhombic iron carbide o-Fe7C3 [Prescher et al., Nat. Geosci. 8, 220 (2015)] is assessed as a potentially important phase for interpretation of the properties of the Earth's core. In this paper, we carry out first-principles calculations on o-Fe7C3, finding properties to be in broad agreement with recent experiments, including a high Poisson's ratio (0.38). Our enthalpy calculations suggest that o-Fe7C3 is more stable than Eckstrom-Adcock hexagonal iron carbide (h-Fe7C3) below approximately 100 GPa. However, at 150 GPa, the two phases are essentially degenerate in terms of Gibbs free energy, and further increasing the pressure towards Earth's core conditions stabilizes h-Fe7C3 with respect to the orthorhombic phase. Increasing the temperature tends to stabilize the hexagonal phase at 360 GPa, but this trend may change beyond the limit of the quasiharmonic approximation.