CONSISTENT METHODOLOGY FOR CALCULATING SURFACE AND INTERFACE ENERGIES

A consistent approach to the calculation of the surface energy valid for all crystal systems is presented. Voronoi polyhedra are introduced and used in conjunction with the energy-density formalism of Chetty and Martin @Phys. Rev. B 45, 6074 ~1992!; 45, 6089 ~1992!# to provide a methodology for the determination of surface energies. The surface energies of the unrelaxed, unreconstructed GaAs ~001! and ~111! surfaces are calculated as a test. As an example of the application of the formalism to a low symmetry system, the energies of selected ~0001! surfaces of the wide-gap semiconductors GaN and SiC are determined. @S0163-1829~98!02012-8#