  We have optimized the exponents of Gaussian s and p basis functions for the
elements H, B-F, and Al-Cl using the pseudopotentials of Goedecker, Teter, and
Hutter [Phys. Rev. B 54, 1703 (1996)] by minimizing the total energy of dimers.
We found that this procedure causes the Gaussian to be somewhat more localized
than the usual procedure, where the exponents are optimized for atoms. We
further found that three exponents, equal for s and p orbitals, are sufficient
to reasonably describe the electronic structure of all elements that we have
studied. For Li and Be results are presented for pseudopotentials of Hartwigsen
et al. [Phys. Rev. B 58, 3641 (1998)]. We expect that our exponents will be
useful for density functional theory studies where speed is important.
