Atom-Centered Potentials to Describe Dispersion Forces in Density Functional Theory

Abstract

London dispersion forces are of primordial importance in chemical and biological systems. The Kohn–Sham formalism of density functional theory combined with many popular approximated exchange-correlation functionals either provides sporadic results or fails completely to account for these forces. Dispersion-corrected atom-centered potentials mimic the effect of these forces via atomic orbital-dependent nonlocal potentials whose parameters are obtained by calibrating against references of chosen accuracy. This scheme has shown encouraging outcomes despite its empiricism; the aim of this communication is to give a brief review on the development and applications to date of this promising approach.