London energy = -d/R⁶

in which d is a constant and R is the distance between atoms.This "inverse sixth" attractive energy decreases rapidly with increasing R, but not nearly as rapidly as the van der Waals repulsion energy. Thus at longer distances, the London attraction is more important than the van der Waals repulsion, consequently a small net interatomic attraction exists.

The total potential energy of van der Waals interactions is the sum of the attractive and repulsive energies:

Total Potential Energy = b e^-aR -d/R⁶