Field · Physics and Astronomy
Most cited papers in Physics and Astronomy
What are the most cited papers in Physics and Astronomy?
The most cited paper in Physics and Astronomy is "Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple" (John P. Perdew, Kieron Burke, Matthias Ernzerhof, 1996), with 217,166 citations. Next come "Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set" (123,939) and "Density-functional thermochemistry. III. The role of exact exchange" (104,174).
Showing 50 of 99 papers. Every paper with more than 14,172 citations is listed.
| # | Paper | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple John P. Perdew, Kieron Burke, Matthias Ernzerhof · Physical Review Letters | 28 Oct 1996 | 217,166 |
| 2 | Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set Georg Kresse, Jürgen Furthmüller · Physical review. B, Condensed matter | 15 Oct 1996 | 123,939 |
| 3 | Density-functional thermochemistry. III. The role of exact exchange Axel D. Becke · The Journal of Chemical Physics | Apr 1993 | 104,174 |
| 4 | Development of the Colle-Salvetti correlation-energy formula into a functional of the electron density Chengteh Lee, Weitao Yang, Robert G. Parr · Physical review. B, Condensed matter | 15 Jan 1988 | 101,337 |
| 5 | Projector augmented-wave method Peter E. Blöchl · Physical review. B, Condensed matter | 15 Dec 1994 | 93,392 |
| 6 | From ultrasoft pseudopotentials to the projector augmented-wave method Georg Kresse, Daniel P. Joubert · Physical review. B, Condensed matter | 15 Jan 1999 | 85,965 |
| 7 | Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set Georg Kresse, Jürgen Furthmüller · Computational Materials Science | Jul 1996 | 76,620 |
| 8 | Special points for Brillouin-zone integrations Hendrik J. Monkhorst, J.D. Pack · Physical review. B, Solid state | 15 Jun 1976 | 71,952 |
| 9 | Self-Consistent Equations Including Exchange and Correlation Effects Walter Kohn, L. J. Sham · Physical Review | 15 Nov 1965 | 64,427 |
| 10 | A consistent and accurate ab initio parametrization of density functional dispersion correction (DFT-D) for the 94 elements H-Pu Stefan Grimme, Jens Antony, Stephan Ehrlich et al. · The Journal of Chemical Physics | 16 Apr 2010 | 59,482 |
| 11 | Density-functional exchange-energy approximation with correct asymptotic behavior Axel D. Becke · Physical Review A | Sep 1988 | 54,107 |
| 12 | Ab initio molecular dynamics for liquid metals Georg Kresse, J. Häfner · Physical review. B, Condensed matter | 1993 | 45,996 |
| 13 | Multiwfn: A multifunctional wavefunction analyzer Tian Lu, Feiwu Chen · Journal of Computational Chemistry | 8 Dec 2011 | 45,639 |
| 14 | Optimization by Simulated Annealing Scott Kirkpatrick, C. D. Gelatt, Mario P. Vecchi · Science | 13 May 1983 | 45,251 |
| 15 | Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks Duncan J. Watts, Steven H. Strogatz · Nature | Jun 1998 | 43,707 |
| 16 | Comparison of simple potential functions for simulating liquid water William L. Jorgensen, Jayaraman Chandrasekhar, Jeffry D. Madura et al. · The Journal of Chemical Physics | 15 Jul 1983 | 42,894 |
| 17 | The Strength of Weak Ties Mark S. Granovetter · American Journal of Sociology | May 1973 | 39,087 |
| 18 | Equation of State Calculations by Fast Computing Machines N. Metropolis, Arianna W. Rosenbluth, M. N. Rosenbluth et al. · The Journal of Chemical Physics | Jun 1953 | 37,517 |
| 19 | Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks Albert-Ĺaszló Barabási, Réka Albert · Science | 15 Oct 1999 | 36,811 |
| 20 | Gaussian basis sets for use in correlated molecular calculations. I. The atoms boron through neon and hydrogen Thom H. Dunning · The Journal of Chemical Physics | 15 Jan 1989 | 32,090 |
| 21 | Molecular dynamics with coupling to an external bath Herman J. C. Berendsen, Johan P. M. Postma, Wilfred F. van Gunsteren et al. · The Journal of Chemical Physics | 15 Oct 1984 | 31,502 |
| 22 | Particle mesh Ewald: An N ⋅log( N ) method for Ewald sums in large systems Tom Darden, Darrin M. York, Lee G. Pedersen · The Journal of Chemical Physics | 15 Jun 1993 | 31,396 |
| 23 | Semiempirical GGA‐type density functional constructed with a long‐range dispersion correction Stefan Grimme · Journal of Computational Chemistry | 5 Sep 2006 | 31,395 |
| 24 | Balanced basis sets of split valence, triple zeta valence and quadruple zeta valence quality for H to Rn: Design and assessment of accuracy Florian Weigend, Reinhart Ahlrichs · Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics | 2005 | 31,196 |
| 25 | The M06 suite of density functionals for main group thermochemistry, thermochemical kinetics, noncovalent interactions, excited states, and transition elements: two new functionals and systematic testing of four M06-class functionals and 12 other functionals Yan Zhao, Donald G. Truhlar · Theoretical Chemistry Accounts | 12 Jul 2007 | 30,648 |
| 26 | Greedy function approximation: A gradient boosting machine. Jerome H. Friedman · The Annals of Statistics | Oct 2001 | 30,593 |
| 27 | QUANTUM ESPRESSO: a modular and open-source software project for quantum simulations of materials Paolo Giannozzi et al. · Journal of Physics Condensed Matter | Sep 2009 | 29,445 |
| 28 | Effect of the damping function in dispersion corrected density functional theory Stefan Grimme, Stephan Ehrlich, Lars Goerigk · Journal of Computational Chemistry | Mar 2011 | 28,444 |
| 29 | An improved technique for determining hardness and elastic modulus using load and displacement sensing indentation experiments W. C. Oliver, George M. Pharr · Journal of materials research/Pratt's guide to venture capital sources | Jun 1992 | 27,030 |
| 30 | Geant4—a simulation toolkit Stefano Agostinelli et al. · Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and Associated Equipment | 21 Jun 2003 | 25,572 |
| 31 | Accurate and simple analytic representation of the electron-gas correlation energy John P. Perdew, Yue Wang · Physical review. B, Condensed matter | 15 Jun 1992 | 25,193 |
| 32 | The electronic properties of graphene Antonio H. Castro Neto, Francisco Javier Esteban Guinea, Nuno M. R. Peres et al. · Reviews of Modern Physics | 14 Jan 2009 | 24,968 |
| 33 | Canonical dynamics: Equilibrium phase-space distributions William Graham Hoover · Physical Review A | Mar 1985 | 23,918 |
| 34 | A quantitative description of membrane current and its application to conduction and excitation in nerve Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, A. F. Huxley · The Journal of Physiology | 28 Aug 1952 | 23,507 |
| 35 | The Tragedy of the Commons Garrett Hardin · Science | 13 Dec 1968 | 23,379 |
| 36 | A smooth particle mesh Ewald method Ulrich Essmann, L. Perera, Max L. Berkowitz et al. · The Journal of Chemical Physics | 15 Nov 1995 | 23,377 |
| 37 | Soft self-consistent pseudopotentials in a generalized eigenvalue formalism David Vanderbilt · Physical review. B, Condensed matter | 15 Apr 1990 | 23,211 |
| 38 | Ab initio molecular-dynamics simulation of the liquid-metal–amorphous-semiconductor transition in germanium Georg Kresse, J. Häfner · Physical review. B, Condensed matter | 15 May 1994 | 23,146 |
| 39 | The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception Marc H. Bornstein, James J. Gibson · Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism | 1980 | 23,143 |
| 40 | Atoms, molecules, solids, and surfaces: Applications of the generalized gradient approximation for exchange and correlation John P. Perdew, J. A. Chevary, S. H. Vosko et al. · Physical review. B, Condensed matter | 15 Sep 1992 | 22,339 |
| 41 | The calculation of small molecular interactions by the differences of separate total energies. Some procedures with reduced errors Samuel Francis Boys, Fernando Bernardi · Molecular Physics | Oct 1970 | 22,220 |
| 42 | A climbing image nudged elastic band method for finding saddle points and minimum energy paths Graeme Henkelman, Blas Pedro Uberuaga, Hannes Jónsson · The Journal of Chemical Physics | 8 Dec 2000 | 21,923 |
| 43 | Fast unfolding of communities in large networks Vincent D. Blondel, Jean‐Loup Guillaume, Renaud Lambiotte et al. · Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment | Oct 2008 | 21,858 |
| 44 | Numerical integration of the cartesian equations of motion of a system with constraints: molecular dynamics of n-alkanes Jean-Paul Ryckaert, Giovanni Ciccotti, Herman J. C. Berendsen · Journal of Computational Physics | Mar 1977 | 21,804 |
| 45 | Multilayer feedforward networks are universal approximators Kurt Hornik, Maxwell B. Stinchcombe, Halbert White · Neural Networks | 1989 | 21,792 |
| 46 | Two-dimensional gas of massless Dirac fermions in graphene Kostya S. Novoselov, Andre K. Geim, С. В. Морозов et al. · Nature | Nov 2005 | 21,624 |
| 47 | Reducing the Dimensionality of Data with Neural Networks Geoffrey E. Hinton, Ruslan Salakhutdinov · Science | 27 Jul 2006 | 21,368 |
| 48 | Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping Nees Jan van Eck, Ludo Waltman · Scientometrics | 30 Dec 2009 | 21,265 |
| 49 | Measurement of the Elastic Properties and Intrinsic Strength of Monolayer Graphene Changgu Lee, Xiaoding Wei, Jeffrey W. Kysar et al. · Science | 17 Jul 2008 | 20,935 |
| 50 | Accurate spin-dependent electron liquid correlation energies for local spin density calculations: a critical analysis S. H. Vosko, L. Wilk, Marwan Nusair · Canadian Journal of Physics | Aug 1980 | 20,860 |
Citations are OpenAlex's own counts, from its 2026-09-23 snapshot, so the ranking can differ from Google Scholar or Web of Science. A paper is listed for a field when OpenAlex files it under one of the field's topics; retracted papers and papers whose citation count cannot be traced to citing works are left out, and a preprint and the article it became are shown once. Release dates are OpenAlex's: where a source gave only a month or a year, that is what is shown. How the lists are chosen.