Fig. 1
From: The role of decomposition reactions in assessing first-principles predictions of solid stability
Three unique decomposition reactions A stable (top) and metastable (bottom) example of each reaction type. Left: reaction Type 1—the decomposition products are the elements; center: reaction Type 2—the decomposition products contain no elements; right: reaction Type 3—the decomposition products contain elements and compounds. Solid blue circles are breaks in the hull (stable) and open red triangles are above the hull (metastable). In all examples, A and B are arbitrary elements. We note that in the stable Type 2 example (top center), the stability of AB is determined by a stable compound, AB2, and an unstable compound, A3B2. This particular phase diagram is chosen to emphasize that the decomposition of stable compounds can include unstable compounds
