TOWARDS A GENERAL STRATEGY FOR GLOBAL INTERATOMIC POTENTIALS FOR ELEMENTAL SOLIDS, SURFACES AND CLUSTERS

A review is given of studies that have been made by the Sussex researc h group on two-body plus three-body potentials for elemental solids, s urfaces and clusters. Parameters are fitted to properties of the bulk solid (cohesive energy, lattice spacing, phonon frequencies, elastic c onstants and vacancy formation energy), and the potentials have been s hown to give sensible structures for clusters and, in the few cases ex amined, for surface energies and structures. The same functional form of the potential has been used for simple metals, transition metals an d group 4 solids.