Orbital-free density functional theory in the tight-binding formalism for covalent systems
Phys. Rev. B 114, 175104 – Published 3 September, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/11fc-v3vk
Abstract
Orbital-free density functional theory (OFDFT) is a promising route to large-scale first-principles simulations, but its application to second-row covalent systems remains limited by the inaccurate description of localized, highly inhomogeneous densities and by the lack of angular-momentum dependence in conventional local pseudopotentials. Here, we develop a unified tight-binding orbital-free density functional theory framework that incorporates both nonlocal kinetic energy and nonlocal pseudopotential energy terms within the same reference-density expansion. In this formulation, a frozen reference density constructed from scaled atomic densities captures the dominant localized atomic contributions, while the self-consistent density variation accounts for bonding and environment-dependent effects. Meanwhile, the nonlocal pseudopotential energy density functional restores the angular-momentum-dependent electron-ion interactions essential for describing directional bonding. Benchmarks on representative B- and C-based covalent systems show that the proposed framework accurately reproduces the equation-of-state properties, relative energetics, and electron-density distributions of diverse boron allotropes while retaining the linear-scaling behavior of OFDFT. For carbon allotropes, the method captures the main structural and bonding trends, with remaining deviations mainly associated with the near-core kinetic energy density of dense phases. These results establish a viable unified OFDFT framework for large-scale simulations of covalent materials and highlight the accuracy of near-core kinetic energy as a key challenge for further methodological development.