Y. Mishin et al., Interatomic potentials for monoatomic metals from experimental data and abinitio calculations, PHYS REV B, 59(5), 1999, pp. 3393-3407
We demonstrate an approach to the development of many-body interatomic pote
ntials for monoatomic metals with improved accuracy and reliability. The fu
nctional form of the potentials is that of the embedded-atom method, but th
e: interesting features are as follows: (1) The database used for the devel
opment of a potential includes both experimental data and a large set of en
ergies of different alternative crystalline structures of the material gene
rated by nb initio calculations. We introduce a rescaling of interatomic di
stances in an attempt to improve the compatibility between experimental and
ab initio data. (2) The optimum parametrization of the potential for the g
iven database is obtained by alternating the fitting and testing steps. The
testing step includes a comparison between the ab initio structural energi
es and those predicted by the potential. This strategy allows us to achieve
the best accuracy of fitting within the intrinsic limitations of the poten
tial model. Using this approach we develop reliable interatomic potentials
for Al and Ni. The potentials accurately reproduce basic equilibrium proper
ties of these metals, the elastic constants, the phonon-dispersion curves,
the vacancy formation and migration energies, the stacking fault energies,
and the surface energies. They also predict the right relative stability of
different alternative structures with coordination numbers ranging from 12
to 4. The potentials are expected to be easily transferable to different l
ocal environments encountered in atomistic simulations of lattice defects.
[S0163-1829(99)05005-5].