What Is Lennard Jones Potential?

The Lennard-Jones potential is an intermolecular pair potential. Among the intermolecular potentials, the Lennard-Jones potential is the potential that has been studied most extensively and most thoroughly. It is considered an archetype model for simple yet realistic intermolecular interactions.

What do you mean by Lennard-Jones potential?

The Lennard-Jones potential is a simplified model that yet describes the essential features of interactions between simple atoms and molecules: Two interacting particles repel each other at very close distance, attract each other at moderate distance, and do not interact at infinite distance, see figure 1.

How is Lennard-Jones potential calculated?

It is often argued that the Lennard-Jones potential, w(r) = −A/r⁶ + B/r¹², is applicable to chemical bonds as well as physical bonds, where the attractive van der Waals term remains unchanged and where only a difference in the repulsive coefficient, B, distinguishes between the two types of interactions.