Modelling diamond-like carbon with the environment-dependent interaction potential

The environment-dependent interaction potential is a transferable empirical potential for carbon which is well suited for studying disordered systems. Ab initio data are used to motivate and parametrize the functional form, which includes environment-dependence in the pair and triple terms, and a generalized aspherical coordination describing dihedral rotation and non-bonded pi-repulsion. Simulations of liquid carbon compare very favourably with Car-Parrinello calculations, while amorphous networks generated by liquid quench have properties superior to Tersoff, Brenner and orthogonal tight-binding calculations. The efficiency of the method enables the first simulations of tetrahedral amorphous carbon by deposition, and a new model for the formation of diamond-like bonding is presented.