English

van der Waals forces in density functional theory: The vdW-DF method

Materials Science 2015-05-19 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Soft Condensed Matter Chemical Physics Computational Physics

Abstract

A density functional theory (DFT) that accounts for van der Waals (vdW) interactions in condensed matter, materials physics, chemistry, and biology is reviewed. The insights that led to the construction of the Rutgers-Chalmers van der Waals Density Functional (vdW-DF) are presented with the aim of giving a historical perspective, while also emphasising more recent efforts which have sought to improve its accuracy. In addition to technical details, we discuss a range of recent applications that illustrate the necessity of including dispersion interactions in DFT. This review highlights the value of the vdW-DF method as a general-purpose method, not only for dispersion bound systems, but also in densely packed systems where these types of interactions are traditionally thought to be negligible.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1412.6827,
  title  = {van der Waals forces in density functional theory: The vdW-DF method},
  author = {Kristian Berland and Valentino R. Cooper and Kyuho Lee and Elsebeth Schröder and T. Thonhauser and Per Hyldgaard and Bengt I. Lundqvist},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.6827},
  year   = {2015}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T07:40:00.055Z