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### pair_style meam command

Syntax:

    pair_style meam

Examples:

    pair_style meam
    pair_coeff * * ../potentials/library.meam Si ../potentials/si.meam Si
    pair_coeff * * ../potentials/library.meam Ni Al NULL Ni Al Ni Ni

Description:

Style meam computes pairwise interactions for a variety of materials using modified embedded-atom method (MEAM) potentials (Baskes). Conceptually, it is an extension to the original EAM potentials which adds angular forces. It is thus suitable for modeling metals and alloys with fcc, bcc, hcp and diamond cubic structures, as well as covalently bonded materials like silicon and carbon.

In the MEAM formulation, the total energy E of a system of atoms is given by:

where F is the embedding energy which is a function of the atomic electron density rho, and phi is a pair potential interaction. The pair interaction is summed over all neighbors J of atom I within the cutoff distance. As with EAM, the multi-body nature of the MEAM potential is a result of the embedding energy term. Details of the computation of the embedding and pair energies, as implemented in LAMMPS, are given in (Gullet) and references therein.

The various parameters in the MEAM formulas are listed in two files which are specified by the pair_coeff command. These are ASCII text files in a format consistent with other MD codes that implement MEAM potentials, such as the serial DYNAMO code and Warp. Several MEAM potential files with parameters for different materials are included in the "potentials" directory of the LAMMPS distribution with a ".meam" suffix. All of these are parameterized in terms of LAMMPS metal units.

Note that unlike for other potentials, cutoffs for MEAM potentials are not set in the pair_style or pair_coeff command; they are specified in the MEAM potential files themselves.

Only a single pair_coeff command is used with the meam style which specifies two MEAM files and the element(s) to extract information for. The MEAM elements are mapped to LAMMPS atom types by specifying N additional arguments after the 2nd filename in the pair_coeff command, where N is the number of LAMMPS atom types:

- MEAM library file
- Elem1, Elem2, ...
- MEAM parameter file
- N element names = mapping of MEAM elements to atom types

As an example, the potentials/library.meam file has generic MEAM settings for a variety of elements. The potentials/sic.meam file has specific parameter settings for a Si and C alloy system. If your LAMMPS simulation has 4 atoms types and you want the 1st 3 to be Si, and the 4th to be C, you would use the following pair_coeff command:

    pair_coeff * * library.meam Si C sic.meam Si Si Si C

The 1st 2 arguments must be * * so as to span all LAMMPS atom types. The two filenames are for the library and parameter file respectively. The Si and C arguments (between the file names) are the two elements for which info will be extracted from the library file. The first three trailing Si arguments map LAMMPS atom types 1,2,3 to the MEAM Si element. The final C argument maps LAMMPS atom type 4 to the MEAM C element.

If the 2nd filename is specified as NULL, no parameter file is read, which simply means the generic parameters in the library file are used. Use of the NULL specification for the parameter file is discouraged for systems with more than a single element type (e.g. alloys), since the parameter file is expected to set element interaction terms that are not captured by the information in the library file.

If a mapping value is specified as NULL, the mapping is not performed. This can be used when a meam potential is used as part of the hybrid pair style. The NULL values are placeholders for atom types that will be used with other potentials.

The MEAM library file provided with LAMMPS has the name potentials/library.meam. It is the "meamf" file used by other MD codes. Aside from blank and comment lines (start with #) which can appear anywhere, it is formatted as a series of entries, each of which has 19 parameters and can span multiple lines:

elt, lat, z, ielement, atwt, alpha, b0, b1, b2, b3, alat, esub, asub, t0, t1, t2, t3, rozero, ibar

The "elt" and "lat" parameters are text strings, such as elt = Si or Cu and lat = dia or fcc. Because the library file is used by Fortran MD codes, these strings may be enclosed in single quotes, but this is not required. The other numeric parameters match values in the formulas above. The value of the "elt" string is what is used in the pair_coeff command to identify which settings from the library file you wish to read in. There can be multiple entries in the library file with the same "elt" value; LAMMPS reads the 1st matching entry it finds and ignores the rest.

If used, the MEAM parameter file contains settings that override or complement the library file settings. Examples of such parameter files are in the potentials directory with a ".meam" suffix. Their format is the same as is read by other Fortran MD codes. Aside from blank and comment lines (start with #) which can appear anywhere, each line has one of the following forms. Each line can also have a trailing comment (starting with #) which is ignored.

    keyword = value
    keyword(I) = value
    keyword(I,J) = value
    keyword(I,J,K) = value

The recognized keywords are as follows:

Ec, alpha, rho0, delta, lattce, attrac, repuls, nn2, Cmin, Cmax, rc, delr, augt1, gsmooth_factor, re

where

    rc          = cutoff radius for cutoff function; default = 4.0
    delr        = length of smoothing distance for cutoff function; default = 0.1
    rho0(I)     = relative density for element I (overwrites value
                  read from meamf file)
    Ec(I,J)     = cohesive energy of reference structure for I-J mixture
    delta(I,J)  = heat of formation for I-J alloy; if Ec_IJ is input as
                  zero, then LAMMPS sets Ec_IJ = (Ec_II + Ec_JJ)/2 - delta_IJ
    alpha(I,J)  = alpha parameter for pair potential between I and J (can
                  be computed from bulk modulus of reference structure
    re(I,J)     = equilibrium distance between I and J in the reference
                  structure
    Cmax(I,J,K) = Cmax screening parameter when I-J pair is screened
                  by K (I<=J); default = 2.8
    Cmin(I,J,K) = Cmin screening parameter when I-J pair is screened
                  by K (I<=J); default = 2.0
    lattce(I,J) = lattice structure of I-J reference structure:
                    dia = diamond (interlaced fcc for alloy)
                    fcc = face centered cubic
                    bcc = body centered cubic
                    dim = dimer
                    B1  = rock salt (NaCl structure)
    gsmooth_factor  = factor determining the length of the G-function smoothing
                      region; only significant for ibar=0 or ibar=4.
                          99.0 = short smoothing region, sharp step
                          0.5  = long smoothing region, smooth step
                          default = 99.0
    augt1           = integer flag for whether to augment t1 parameter by
                      3/5*t3 to account for old vs. new meam formulations;
                        0 = don't augment t1
                        1 = augment t1
                        default = 1

Rc, delr, re are in distance units (Angstroms in the case of metal units). Ec and delta are in energy units (eV in the case of metal units).

Each keyword represents a quantity which is either a scalar, vector, 2d array, or 3d array and must be specified with the correct corresponding array syntax. The indices I,J,K each run from 1 to N where N is the number of MEAM elements being used.

Thus these lines

    rho0(2) = 2.25
    alpha(1,2) = 4.37

set rho0 for the 2nd element to the value 2.25 and set alpha for the alloy interaction between elements 1 and 2 to 4.37.

Mixing, shift, table, tail correction, per-atom energy/stress, restart, rRESPA info:

For atom type pairs I,J and I != J, where types I and J correspond to two different element types, mixing is performed by LAMMPS with user-specifiable parameters as described above. You never need to specify a pair_coeff command with I != J arguments for this style.

This pair style does not support the pair_modify shift, table, and tail options.

This pair style does not calculate per-atom energy and stress, as used by the compute epair/atom, compute stress/atom, and dump custom commands.

This pair style does not write its information to binary restart files, since it is stored in potential files. Thus, you need to re-specify the pair_style and pair_coeff commands in an input script that reads a restart file.

This pair style can only be used via the pair keyword of the run_style respa command. It does not support the inner, middle, outer keywords.

Restrictions:

This style is part of the "meam" package. It is only enabled if LAMMPS was built with that package, which also requires the MEAM library be built and linked with LAMMPS. See the Making LAMMPS section for more info.

Related commands:

pair_coeff, pair_style eam

Default: none

(Baskes) Baskes, Phys Rev B, 46, 2727-2742 (1992).

(Gullet) Gullet, Wagner, Slepoy, SANDIA Report 2003-8782 (2003). This report may be accessed on-line via this link.