Electron-phonon interactions

In many systems, it suffices to treat the electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom (phonons) separately, because electrons are much faster than the motion of nuclei. This treatment is approximate and can be corrected by including electron-phonon coupling. This entails the coupling of the two systems while still treating the two systems separately. In fact, electron-phonon scattering is the prevalent effect in a wide range of applications, such as the mobility of semiconductors or the conductivity of metals at room temperature.

Further resources

Also check out the electron-phonon category on the VASP Wiki for a detailed documentation of phonon features implemented in VASP.