Under the application of a strong electric field, atoms from a metal surface can rupture their bonds and escape, leading to ‘field-evaporation’. We present a firstprinciples description of this phenomenon, taking as an example the evaporation of Al adatoms from an Al(111) surface. The ‘charged-plane’ method [A.Y. Lozovoi and A. Alavi, Phys Rev B 68, 246416 (2003)], has been implemented in the c...