CALANIE: Anisotropic elastic correction to the total energy, to mitigate the effect of periodic boundary conditions
Description
CALANIE (CALculation of ANIsotropic Elastic energy) computer program evaluates the elastic interaction correction to the total energy of a localized object, for example a defect in a material simulated using an ab initio or molecular statics approach, resulting from the use of periodic boundary conditions. The correction, computed using a fully elastically anisotropic Green’s function formalism, arises from the elastic interaction between a defect and its own periodically translated images. The long-range field of elastic displacements produced by the defect is described in the elastic dipole approximation. Applications of the method are illustrated by two case studies, one involving an ab initio investigation of point defects and vacancy migration in FCC gold, and another a molecular statics simulation of a dislocation loop. We explore the convergence of the method as a function of the simulation cell size, and note the significance of taking into account the elastic correction in the limit where the size of the defect is comparable with the size of the simulation cell.