A new, approximate method has been developed for computing total energies and forces for a variety of applications including molecular dynamics simulations of covalent materials. The method is tight-binding-like and is based on the local density approximation within the pseudopotential scheme. Slightly excited pseudo-atomic-orbitals are used, and the tight-binding Hamiltonian matrix is obtained in real space. The method is used to find the total energies for five crystalline phases of Si and the Si 2 molecule. Excellent agreement is found with experiment. A molecular dynamics simulated annealing study has been performed on the Si 3 molecule to determine the ground state configuration.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.