Element orbitals for Kohn-Sham density functional theory

We present a method to discretize the Kohn-Sham Hamiltonian matrix in the pseudopotential framework by a small set of basis functions automatically contracted from a uniform basis set such as plane waves. Each basis function is localized around an element, which is a small part of the global domain containing multiple atoms. We demonstrate that the resulting basis set achieves meV accuracy for three-dimensional densely packed systems with a small number of basis functions per atom. The procedure is applicable to both insulating and metallic systems.