Stability of long period stacking variants in the pairwise interaction model

Stability of long period stacking variants in the hexagonal cell is discussed by determining the structure of lowest energy of the pairwise interaction model. The interlayer interactions extended to several neighbor layers are assumed in the model. Typical stacking variants observed in many cases (Laves phase alloy, transition-metal carbides, etc.) are obtained as the ground state of the model. Several examples are discussed to show that an experimental observation of the long period stacking variants yields a certain amount of informations about the interactions. Also the possibility of finding new structures is discussed