Density of electronic states in amorphous metals: Effect of structural variation due to interatomic-potential softness

Abstract

A study has been made of the effect of structural changes in hard-sphere models due to relaxation under soft interatomic potentials on the density of $d$ states in amorphous transition metals. We have used models based on Morse, Morse truncated, and Lennard-Jones forms of interatomic potentials. It is found that the bandwidth increases as the hard-sphere model is relaxed and the average density of states in various relaxed models has double-peaked structure except for Morse potential where an extra little peak appears near the bottom of the band. A study has also been made of the local density of states in two models and it is found that the local density of states is governed by the local radial distribution of near neighbors.