This work presents a comprehensive and detailed ab initio study of interactions between the tilt 5(210) grain boundary (GB), impurities X (X = Al, Si) and vacancies (Va) in ferromagnetic fcc nickel. To obtain reliable results, two methods of structure relaxation were employed: the automatic full relaxation and the finding of the minimum energy with respect to the lattice dimensions perpendicular to the GB plane and positions of atoms. Both methods provide comparable results. The analyses of the following phenomena are provided: the influence of the lattice defects on structural properties of material such as lattice parameters, the volume per atom, interlayer distances and atomic positions; the energies of formation of particular structures with respect to the standard element reference states; the stabilization/destabilization effects of impurities (in substitutional (s) as well as in tetragonal (iT) and octahedral (iO) interstitial positions) and of vacancies in both the bulk material and material with GBs; a possibility of recombination of Si(i) +Va defect to Si(s) one with respect to the Va position; the total energy of formation of GB and Va; the binding energies between the lattice defects and their combinations; impurity segregation energies and the effect of Va on them; magnetic characteristics in the presence of impurities, vacancies and GBs. As there is very little experimental information on the interaction between impurities, vacancies and GBs in fcc nickel, most of the present results are theoretical predictions, which may motivate future experimental work.

Central European Institute of Technology CEITEC MU Masaryk University Kamenice 753 5 CZ625 00 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Chemistry Faculty of Science Masaryk University Kotlářská 2 CZ611 37 Brno Czech Republic

Institute of Physics of Materials Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Žižkova 22 CZ616 62 Brno Czech Republic

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Editorial for the Special Issue on Computational Quantum Physics and Chemistry of Nanomaterials