Point defect energetics in silicon using the LDA+U method

Abstract

We present the first principles results of point defect energetics in silicon calculated using the LDA+U method: a Hubbard type on-site interaction added to the local density approximation (LDA). The on-site Coulomb and exchange parameters were tuned to match the experimental band gap in Si. The relaxed configuration was obtained using the LDA; LDA+U was used only to calculate the energies. Our values of point defect energetics are in very good agreement with both recent experimental results and quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations.