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Electronic Structure: Basic Theory and Practical Methods, by Richard M.

Martin

Article  in  Contemporary Physics · January 2011

DOI: 10.1080/00107514.2010.509989

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Electronic Structure: Basic Theory and Practical

Methods, by Richard M. Martin
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Dr Matt Probert
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University of York
Published online: 10 Jan 2011.

To cite this article: Dr Matt Probert (2011) Electronic Structure: Basic Theory and Practical Methods, by Richard M. Martin,
Contemporary Physics, 52:1, 77-77, DOI: 10.1080/00107514.2010.509989

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 Contemporary Physics
The coverage of subjects is ample, diversified, and
many up to date arguments are treated. A large
number of examples clarify the discussion. Therefore, I
would expect the book to be very useful to researchers
and students involved with optical communications,
photonics and applied electromagnetics. I would say
that any researcher in the field should have this book in
his/her personal library. The typographical presenta-
tion is accurate and in complex very good.
Professor Mario Bertolotti
Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’
mario.bertolotti@uniroma1.it
Ó 2011, Mario Bertolotti
Downloaded by [University of York] at 04:02 10 September 2013
Electronic Structure: Basic Theory and Practical
Methods, by Richard M. Martin, Cambridge, Cam-
bridge University Press, 2004, 648 pp., £49.00 (hard-
back), ISBN 978-0521782852. Scope: graduate level
textbook. Level: theoretical materials scientists/con-
densed matter physicists/computational chemists.
Electronic structure calculations are an increasingly
popular and cost-effective way of doing fundamental
and applied science across a wide range of materials-
based research areas. This can be seen in the continued
growth in the number of papers published (almost
16,000 in 2009) and the citations of the key foundational
papers. Indeed, it has long been argued that one of the
few areas in electronic structure theory that has true
linear scaling is the number of citations of the original
Density Functional Theory (DFT) papers with time! As
these fundamental theory papers were published in the
1960s and many of the key algorithmic papers were
published in the late 80s and early 90s, this is clearly a
mature field. And yet despite all this, there are very few
textbooks that provide a comprehensive introduction to
the whole field and the key algorithms.
This text, by Richard Martin, stands out as one of
the best. It is an accomplished work by an ‘elder
statesman’ in the field, and provides a near unique
breadth of coverage of the fundamental ideas and
algorithms. Originally published in 2004, it has stood
the test of time well, and has been the key text in my
research group, and I suspect many others, since then.
For those not in the know, this book starts with a
good coverage of background quantum mechanics
and solid state physics, before explaining the funda-
mentals of DFT. This then forms the basis for the rest
of the book – there is minimal treatment of Hartree–
Fock theory and quantum chemistry methods. Con-
siderable attention is paid to the importance and the
properties of the exchange-correlation functional, and
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77
many advanced ideas beyond the basic local density
approximation are clearly and coherently presented.
I particularly appreciated the subsequent chapters on
atomic potentials and pseudopotentials, as it made the
whole subject of the ultra-soft pseudopotentials and
the projector augmented wave method (two topics
that rarely covered in other texts yet are crucial in
many modern computer programs) appear as a logical
development from earlier theories. This is then
followed by an even-handed treatment of the three
main ways of implementing DFT (plane wave basis/
localised orbitals/muffin-tin methods) including details
of the key algorithms and the relative strengths/
weakness of each approach.
Finally, the book closes with a section on ‘recent’
developments. Given the age of the book, this means
ideas from the late 90s to early 00s, such as linear
response theory, linear scaling methods, Wannier
functions and their uses, and excited states. One
significant omission from this list is the lack of
discussion of dispersion/van der Waals interactions
which is a topic that was at that stage just beginning to
attract significant attention and has matured signifi-
cantly since. Other texts, e.g. Springborg (Methods of
Electronic-structure Calculations, Wiley, 2000) provide
a more comprehensive description of the range of
properties that can be calculated in an electronic
structure code, but this book excels in its treatment of
the fundamentals of DFT and the core algorithms used
in many modern computer codes.
Overall, this is an excellent text. It provides a very
useful background for anyone who uses DFT codes,
and is an essential read for anyone involved in
developing a DFT code or working on theoretical
fundamentals. I strongly recommend this book.
Dr Matt Probert
University of York
mijp1@york.ac.uk
Ó 2011, Matt Probert
Applied Solid Mechanics, by P. Howell, G. Kozyreff
and J. Ockendon, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 2009, xiv þ 452 pp., £29.99 (paperback), ISBN
9780521671095. Scope: textbook. Level: graduate and
advanced undergraduate.
The authors have spent many years teaching solid
mechanics to mathematics students and this is evident
when reading the book. This is not simply a collection
of lecture notes, but contains insights and reflections
on the discipline. Each chapter is clear and concise,
figures are used whenever required to illustrate the