Tersoff-Abell type bond-order potentials: A review

Karsten Albe, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

Bond-order potentials of the Tersoff-Abell type were originally proposed for modelling covalent materials, like carbon and silicon and later extended to other materials including various compounds.

In the contribution I will give a brief introduction into the formalism and discuss fitting strategies as well as various parametrizations for modelling compound semiconductors, magnetic and non-magnetic metals. An extension by a simplified charge-transfer scheme will be presented and several examples for successes and shortcomings of this type of bond-order potential will be given.