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Register a new userAccurate ionic forces and geometry optimisation in linear scaling density-functional theory with local orbitals
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Linear scaling methods for density-functional theory (DFT) simulations are formulated in terms of localised orbitals in real-space, rather than the delocalised eigenstates of conventional approaches. In local-orbital methods, relative to conventional DFT, desirable properties can be lost to some extent, such as the translational invariance of the total energy of a system with respect to small displacements and the smoothness of the potential energy surface. This has repercussions for calculating accurate ionic forces and geometries. In this work we present results from textsc{onetep}, our linear scaling method based on localised orbitals in real-space. The use of psinc functions for the underlying basis set and on-the-fly optimisation of the localised orbitals results in smooth potential energy surfaces that are consistent with ionic forces calculated using the Hellmann-Feynman theorem. This enables accurate geometry optimisation to be performed. Results for surface reconstructions in silicon are presented, along with three example systems demonstrating the performance of a quasi-Newton geometry optimisation algorithm: an organic zwitterion, a point defect in an ionic crystal, and a semiconductor nanostructure.
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Localized basis sets in the projector augmented wave formalism allow for computationally efficient calculations within density functional theory (DFT). However, achieving high numerical accuracy requires an extensive basis set, which also poses a fundamental problem for the interpretation of the results. We present a way to obtain a reduced basis set of atomic orbitals through the subdiagonalization of each atomic block of the Hamiltonian. The resulting local orbitals (LOs) inherit the information of the local crystal field. In the LO basis, it becomes apparent that the Hamiltonian is nearly block-diagonal, and we demonstrate that it is possible to keep only a subset of relevant LOs which provide an accurate description of the physics around the Fermi level. This reduces to some extent the redundancy of the original basis set, and at the same time it allows one to perform post-processing of DFT calculations, ranging from the interpretation of electron transport to extracting effective tight-binding Hamiltonians, very efficiently and without sacrificing the accuracy of the results.
We demonstrate that Daubechies wavelets can be used to construct a minimal set of optimized localized contracted basis functions in which the Kohn-Sham orbitals can be represented with an arbitrarily high, controllable precision. Ground state energies and the forces acting on the ions can be calculated in this basis with the same accuracy as if they were calculated directly in a Daubechies wavelets basis, provided that the amplitude of these contracted basis functions is sufficiently small on the surface of the localization region, which is guaranteed by the optimization procedure described in this work. This approach reduces the computational costs of DFT calculations, and can be combined with sparse matrix algebra to obtain linear scaling with respect to the number of electrons in the system. Calculations on systems of 10,000 atoms or more thus become feasible in a systematic basis set with moderate computational resources. Further computational savings can be achieved by exploiting the similarity of the contracted basis functions for closely related environments, e.g. in geometry optimizations or combined calculations of neutral and charged systems.
We present an implementation of time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) in the linear response formalism enabling the calculation of low energy optical absorption spectra for large molecules and nanostructures. The method avoids any explicit reference to canonical representations of either occupied or virtual Kohn-Sham states and thus achieves linear-scaling computational effort with system size. In contrast to conventional localised orbital formulations, where a single set of localised functions is used to span the occupied and unoccupied state manifold, we make use of two sets of in situ optimised localised orbitals, one for the occupied and one for the unoccupied space. This double representation approach avoids known problems of spanning the space of unoccupied Kohn-Sham states with a minimal set of localised orbitals optimised for the occupied space, while the in situ optimisation procedure allows for efficient calculations with a minimal number of functions. The method is applied to a number of medium sized organic molecules and a good agreement with traditional TDDFT methods is observed. Furthermore, linear scaling of computational cost with system size is demonstrated on a system of carbon nanotubes.
We introduce a method to carry out zero-temperature calculations within density functional theory (DFT) but without relying on the Born-Oppenheimer (BO) approximation for the ionic motion. Our approach is based on the finite-temperature many-body path-integral formulation of quantum mechanics by taking the zero-temperature limit and treating the imaginary-time propagation of the electronic variables in the context of DFT. This goes beyond the familiar BO approximation and is limited from being an exact treatment of both electrons and ions only by the approximations involved in the DFT component. We test our method in two simple molecules, H$_2$ and benzene. We demonstrate that the method produces a difference from the results of the BO approximation which is significant for many physical systems, especially those containing light atoms such as hydrogen; in these cases, we find that the fluctuations of the distance from its equilibrium position, due to the zero-point-motion, is comparable to the interatomic distances. The method is suitable for use with conventional condensed matter approaches and currently is implemented on top of the periodic pseudopotential code SIESTA.
We present a solution of the full TDDFT eigenvalue equation in the linear response formalism exhibiting a linear-scaling computational complexity with system size, without relying on the simplifying Tamm-Dancoff approximation (TDA). The implementation relies on representing the occupied and unoccupied subspace with two different sets of in situ optimised localised functions, yielding a very compact and efficient representation of the transition density matrix of the excitation with the accuracy associated with a systematic basis set. The TDDFT eigenvalue equation is solved using a preconditioned conjugate-gradients algorithm that is very memory-efficient. The algorithm is validated on a test molecule and a good agreement with results obtained from standard quantum chemistry packages is found, with the preconditioner yielding a significant improvement in convergence rates. The method developed in this work is then used to reproduce experimental results of the absorption spectrum of bacteriochlorophyll (BChl) in an organic solvent, where it is demonstrated that the TDA fails to reproduce the main features of the low energy spectrum, while the full TDDFT equation yields results in good qualitative agreement with experimental data. Furthermore, the need for explicitly including parts of the solvent into the TDDFT calculations is highlighted, making the treatment of large system sizes necessary that are well within reach of the capabilities of the algorithm introduced here. Finally, the linear-scaling properties of the algorithm are demonstrated by computing the lowest excitation energy of BChl in solution. The largest systems considered in this work are of the same order of magnitude as a variety of pigment-protein complexes, opening up the possibility of studying their properties without having to resort to any semiclassical approximations to parts of the protein environment.
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