Investigation of Electron Crystallization in a HCP Structure

Abstract

The ground state energies of non-magnetic, ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases of 3D electron crystals corresponding to hcp structure are computed. In each case, the possibility of the Wigner electrons having cubic or spherical constant energy surface (the region of integration in momentum space) is investigated. The role of correlation energy is suitably taken into account. The range of the low density region favourable for Wigner electron crystallization is found. The structure dependent Wannier functions, which give proper localized representation for the Wigner electrons in the crystal, are employed in the calculation.