First Principles Calculations of Helium Solution Energies in BCC Transition Metals

Density functional theory calculations of the solution energies of helium in substitutional, tetrahedral and octahedral sites have been performed for all BCC transition metals: V, Nb, Ta, Cr, Mo, W and Fe. The effects of exchange correlation functional and of pseudopotential have been investigated in Fe; they are relatively small. The solution energies are found to be weakly dependent on the element for the substitutional site whereas for the interstitial sites they are much smaller in group V than in group VI and they decrease from 3d to 4d and 5d metals. As a result an inversion is observed from V, Nb and Ta - which tend to favor the interstitial site - to Mo and W, which favor the substitutional one, with an intermediate behavior for Cr and Fe. Finally, the results indicate that the tetrahedral site is always energetically more favorable than the octahedral one by 0.2 to 0.3 eV. (authors)