Total Energy of Simple, Transition, and Rare Earth Metals and the Ionic Radii

Abstract A simple model is presented that gives an overall, semi‐quantitative description of the binding energy, equilibrium atomic radius, and bulkmodulus for simple, rare earth and IIIB‐VIB transition metals as well, by making use only of the valency (column number in the Periodic Table) and the value of the ionic (Pauling) radius. The two radius parameters of the modified empty‐core potential are linearly connected in the model, and both are correlated with the experimental ionic radius. The model, besides giving reasonable results for most of the simple metals, reproduces fairly well the cohesive parameters of the rare earth elements and the results are rather satisfactory also for transition metals up to the middle of each series.