Nudged Elastic Band Method

The Nudged Elastic Band (NEB) method is a computational technique for finding minimum-energy transition paths between stable atomic configurations and estimating activation barriers. Developed by Jónsson, Mills, and Jacobsen in 1998, NEB connects initial and final states with a chain of images (configurations) held together by artificial springs, then optimizes the chain to trace a reaction pathway. The climbing-image variant, introduced by Henkelman in 2000, further refines the saddle point. NEB is the standard tool in materials science and chemistry for modeling diffusion, defect formation, and chemical reactions at the atomic scale.