Repulsive interatomic potentials calculated using Hartree-Fock and density-functional theory methods

The repulsive part of the interatomic potential affects the outcome of computer simulations of many irradiation processes of practical interest, like sputtering and ion irradiation range distributions. The accuracy of repulsive potentials is studied by comparing potentials calculated using commonly available density-functional theory (DFT) and Hartree-Fock (HF) methods to highly accurate fully numerical HF and Hartree-Fock-Slater (HFS) calculations. We find that DFT calculations utilizing numerical basis sets and HF calculations using decontracted standard basis sets provide repulsive potentials which are significantly improved compared to the standard universal ZBL potential. The accuracy of the calculated potentials is almost totally governed by the quality of the one-particle basis set. The use of reliable repulsive potentials open up new avenues for analysis of ion irradiation experiments.