Morales García, ÁngelValero Montero, RosendoIllas i Riera, Francesc2020-06-152020-06-152017-08-091932-7447https://hdl.handle.net/2445/165598Band structure calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) with local or gradient-corrected exchange-correlation potentials are known to severely underestimate the band gap of semiconducting and insulating materials. Alternative approaches have been proposed: from semiempirical setups, such as the so-called DFT +U, to hybrid density functionals using a fraction of nonlocal Fock exchange, to modifications of semilocal density functionals. However, the resulting methods appear to be material dependent and lack theoretical rigor. The rigorous many-body perturbation theory based on GW methods provides accurate results but at a very high computational cost. Hereby, we show that a linear correlation between the electronic band gaps obtained from standard DFT and GW approaches exists for most materials and argue that (1) this is a strong indication that the problem of predicting band gaps from standard DFT calculation arises from the assignment of a physical meaning to the Kohn-Sham energy levels rather than from intrinsic errors of the DFT methods and (2) it provides a practical way to obtain GW-like quality results from standard DFT calculations. The latter will be especially useful for systems where the unit cell involves a large number of atoms as in the case of doped or defect-containing materials for which GW calculations become unfeasible.5 p.application/pdfeng(c) American Chemical Society , 2017Teoria del funcional de densitatConductivitat elèctricaDensity functionalsElectric conductivityAn empirical, yet practical way to predict the band gap in solids by using density functional band structure calculationsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article6762162020-06-15info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess