Universal tight-binding model for transition metals: from bulk to cluster

Abstract

A universal orthogonal tight-binding (TB) model is developed for transition metals, withspecial emphasis on spin-polarized self-consistent calculations. The parameters of the TBmodel are directly obtained from the ab initio bulk calculations within the linear muffin-tinorbital atomic sphere approximation method, without any fitting. With the environmentaldependence of the Hamiltonian included in the localized structure constants, the TB modelcan be reliably applied to various situations, from periodic bulk structures to smallclusters, for both pure metals and alloys. We have tested the model in spin-polarizedcalculations against ab initio results for small computational cell systems, andapplied the model to study the spin and orbital magnetism of some large clusters.