Electronic structure codes based on density functional theory (and its extensions) are core tools of modern material science. These methods are used to predict material properties from first principles and also to help with the interpretation of experimental results.
A basic knowledge has become essential both for theoreticians and experimentalists.
After decades of development some of these codes are extremely easy to use (in spite of a tremendous complexity of the theoretical aspects and internal numerics), anyone can learn how to produce meaningful results with little training.
In this tutorial we will use the ELK code, which is a state of the art implementation using a full potential description of the atomic core states. This is a great code to study complex material properties like non-collinear magnetism, superconductivity, optical and magnetic response, lattice dynamics and ultrafast light-matter interaction in solids.
We will review the basic theoretical methods implemented in ELK and show how to compute complex properties. We will adjust the specific arguments depending on the fields of interest of the attendants.
ELK is mostly developed at the Max Planck in Halle by Kay Dewhurst, who will help and support this tutorial.
