Electronic Energy Bands in Lithium

Abstract

The orthogonalized plane wave method has been applied to a calculation of energy bands in metallic lithium. An empirical potential, constructed by Seitz, was used. Energies were obtained for states belonging to twenty-four symmetry types at four points of the Brillouin zone. The energy of the lowest state of a valence electron determined in this work is in good agreement with a previous cellular method calculation. The states which bound the lowest band were found to be of predominantly $P$ type.