Table of contents |
2 Early Models 3 Kohn-Sham Theory 4 References |
Modern DFT is in principle an exact theory, though in practice approximations have to be made to important quantities. DFT therefore sacrifices some of the accuracy of traditional methods in return for a greatly reduced computational cost.
DFT has been very popular for calculations in solid state physics since the 1970s. However, it was not considered accurate enough for calculations in quantum chemistry until the 1990s, when the approximations used in the theory were greatly refined. DFT is now the leading method for electronic structure calculations in both fields.
The first true density functional theory was developed by Thomas and Fermi in the 1920's.Description of the Theory
Early Models