The surface relaxation of the low-index planes of Ni, Cu, Ag, and Al has been computed via the method of equivalent crystals. Good agreement with experiment is obtained. The sign of the change in interlayer spacing is observed to alternate with depth in all cases. The relaxations can be simply understood as a competition between a bond compression energy and an energy which depends essentially only on distances to neighboring atoms.

• Received 29 December 1987

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.37.10411