Lectures On Methods Of Electronic Structure Calculations

Developments in the density functional theory and the methods of electronic structure calculations have made it possible to carry out ab-initio studies of a variety of materials efficiently and at a predictable level. This book covers many of those state-of-the-art developments and their applications to ordered and disordered materials, surfaces and interfaces and clusters, etc.

Understanding the electronic structure of solids is a basic part of theoretical investigation in physics. Application of investigative techniques requires the solid under investigation to be "periodic." However, this is not always the case. This volume addresses three classes of "non-periodic" solids currently undergoing the most study: alloys, surfaces and clusters. Understanding the electronic structure of these systems is fundamental not only for the basic science, but also constitutes a very important step in various technological aspects, such as tuning their stabilities, chemical and catalytic reactivities and magnetism. Expert practitioners give an up-to-date account of the field with enough detailed background so that even a newcomer can follow the development. The theoretical framework is discussed in addition to the present status of knowledge in the field. Electronic Structure of Alloys, Surfaces and Clusters also includes an extensive bibliography which provides a comprehensive reading list of work on the topic.

A very comprehensive book, enabling the reader to understand the basic formalisms used in electronic structure determination and particularly the "Muffin Tin Orbitals" methods. The latest developments are presented, providing a very detailed description of the "Full Potential" schemes. This book will provide a real state of the art, since almost all of the contributions on formalism have not been, and will not be, published elsewhere. This book will become a standard reference volume. Moreover, applications in very active fields of today's research on magnetism are presented. A wide spectrum of such questions is covered by this book. For instance, the paper on interlayer exchange coupling should become a "classic", since there has been fantastic experimental activity for 10 years and this can be considered to be the "final" theoretical answer to this question. This work has never been presented in such a complete form.

At present, there is an increasing interest in the prediction of properties of classical and new materials such as substitutional alloys, their surfaces, and metallic or semiconductor multilayers. A detailed understanding based on a thus of the utmost importance for fu microscopic, parameter-free approach is ture developments in solid state physics and materials science. The interrela tion between electronic and structural properties at surfaces plays a key role for a microscopic understanding of phenomena as diverse as catalysis, corrosion, chemisorption and crystal growth. Remarkable progress has been made in the past 10-15 years in the understand ing of behavior of ideal crystals and their surfaces by relating their properties to the underlying electronic structure as determined from the first principles. Similar studies of complex systems like imperfect surfaces, interfaces, and mul tilayered structures seem to be accessible by now. Conventional band-structure methods, however, are of limited use because they require an excessive number of atoms per elementary cell, and are not able to account fully for e.g. substitu tional disorder and the true semiinfinite geometry of surfaces. Such problems can be solved more appropriately by Green function techniques and multiple scattering formalism.

In recent years the Japanese have funded a comprehensive study of carbon materials which incorporate other elements including boron, nitrogen and fluorine, hence the title of the project "Carbon Alloys". Coined in 1992, the phrase "Carbon Alloys" can be applied to those materials mainly composed of carbon materials in multi-component systems. The carbon atoms of each component have a physical and/or chemical interactive relationship with other atoms or compounds. The carbon atoms of the components may have different hybrid bonding orbitals to create quite different carbon components. Eiichi Yasuda and his team consider the definition of Carbon Alloys, present the results of the Carbon Alloys projects, describe typical Carbon Alloys and their uses, discuss recent techniques for their characterization, and finally, illustrate potential applications and future developments for Carbon Alloy science. The book contains over thirty chapters on these studies from as many researchers. The most modern of techniques, particularly in the area of spectroscopy, were used as diagnostic tools, and many of these are applicable to pure carbons also. Porosity in carbons received considerable attention.

We present here the transcripts of lectures and talks which were delivered at the NATO ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTE "Electronic Structure of Complex Systems" held at the State University of Ghent, Belgium during the period July 12-23, 1982. The aim of these lectures was to highlight some of the current progress in our understanding of the electronic structure of com plex systems. A massive leap forward is obtained in bandstructure calculations with the advent of linear methods. The bandtheory also profitted tremendously from the recent developments in the density functional theories for the properties of the interacting electron gas in the presence of an external field of ions. The means of per forming fast bandstructure calculations and the confidence in the underlying potential functions have led in the past five years or so to a wealth of investigations into the electronic properties of elemental solids and compounds. The study of the trends of the electronic structure through families of materials provided invalu able insights for the prediction of new materials. The detailed study of the electronic structure of specific solids was not neglected and our present knowledge of d- and f-metals and metal hydrides was reviewed. For those systems we also investi gated the accuracy of the one electron potentials in fine detail and we complemented this with the study of small clusters of atoms where our calculations are amenable to comparison with the frontiers of quantum chemistry calculations.