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Register a new userExtending Hirshfeld-I to bulk and periodic materials
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Added by
Danny E. P. Vanpoucke Dr.
Publication date
2013
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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In this work, a method is described to extend the iterative Hirshfeld-I method, generally used for molecules, to periodic systems. The implementation makes use of precalculated pseudo-potential based charge density distributions, and it is shown that high quality results are obtained for both molecules and solids, such as ceria, diamond, and graphite. The use of such grids makes the implementation independent of the solid state or quantum chemical code used for studying the system. The extension described here allows for easy calculation of atomic charges and charge transfer in periodic and bulk systems.
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The issues raised in the comment by T.A. Manz are addressed through the presentation of calculated atomic charges for NaF, NaCl, MgO, SrTiO$_3$ and La$_2$Ce$_2$O$_7$, using our previously presented method for calculating Hirshfeld-I charges in Solids [J. Comput. Chem.. doi: 10.1002/jcc.23088]. It is shown that the use of pseudo-valence charges is sufficient to retrieve the full all-electron Hirshfeld-I charges to good accuracy. Furthermore, we present timing results of different systems, containing up to over $200$ atoms, underlining the relatively low cost for large systems. A number of theoretical issues is formulated, pointing out mainly that care must be taken when deriving new atoms in molecules methods based on expectations for atomic charges.
An outstanding challenge of theoretical electronic structure is the description of van der Waals (vdW) interactions in molecules and solids. Renewed interest in resolving this is in part motivated by the technological promise of layered systems including graphite, transition metal dichalcogenides, and more recently, black phosphorus, in which the interlayer interaction is widely believed to be dominated by these types of forces. We report a series of quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations for bulk black phosphorus and related few-layer phosphorene, which elucidate the nature of the forces that bind these systems and provide benchmark data for the energetics of these systems. We find a significant charge redistribution due to the interaction between electrons on adjacent layers. Comparison to density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate not only wide variability even among different vdW corrected functionals, but the failure of these functionals to capture the trend of reorganization predicted by QMC. The delicate interplay of steric and dispersive forces between layers indicate that few-layer phosphorene presents an unexpected challenge for the development of vdW corrected DFT.
Accurate and efficient calculations of absorption spectra of molecules and materials are essential for the understanding and rational design of broad classes of systems. Solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) for electron-hole pairs usually yields accurate predictions of absorption spectra, but it is computationally expensive, especially if thermal averages of spectra computed for multiple configurations are required. We present a method based on machine learning to evaluate a key quantity entering the definition of absorption spectra: the dielectric screening. We show that our approach yields a model for the screening that is transferable between multiple configurations sampled during first principles molecular dynamics simulations; hence it leads to a substantial improvement in the efficiency of calculations of finite temperature spectra. We obtained computational gains of one to two orders of magnitude for systems with 50 to 500 atoms, including liquids, solids, nanostructures, and solid/liquid interfaces. Importantly, the models of dielectric screening derived here may be used not only in the solution of the BSE but also in developing functionals for time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) calculations of homogeneous and heterogeneous systems. Overall, our work provides a strategy to combine machine learning with electronic structure calculations to accelerate first principles simulations of excited-state properties.
The MechElastic Python package evaluates the mechanical and elastic properties of bulk and 2D materials using the elastic coefficient matrix ($C_{ij}$) obtained from any ab-initio density-functional theory (DFT) code. The current version of this package reads the output of VASP, ABINIT, and Quantum Espresso codes (but it can be easily generalized to any other DFT code) and performs the appropriate post-processing of elastic constants as per the requirement of the user. This program can also detect the input structures crystal symmetry and test the mechanical stability of all crystal classes using the Born-Huang criteria. Various useful material-specific properties such as elastic moduli, longitudinal and transverse elastic wave velocities, Debye temperature, elastic anisotropy, 2D layer modulus, hardness, Pughs ratio, Cauchys pressure, Kleinman parameter, and Lames coefficients, can be estimated using this program. Another existing feature of this program is to employ the ELATE package [J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 28, 275201 (2016)] and plot the spatial variation of several elastic properties such as Poissons ratio, linear compressibility, shear modulus, and Youngs modulus in three dimensions. Further, the MechElastic package can plot the equation of state (EOS) curves for energy and pressure for a variety of EOS models such as Murnaghan, Birch, Birch-Murnaghan, and Vinet, by reading the inputted energy/pressure versus volume data obtained via numerical calculations or experiments. This package is particularly useful for the high-throughput analysis of elastic and mechanical properties of materials.
Magnetic coercivity is often viewed to be lower in alloys with negligible (or zero) values of the anisotropy constant. However, this explains little about the dramatic drop in coercivity in FeNi alloys at a non-zero anisotropy value. Here, we develop a theoretical and computational tool to investigate the fundamental interplay between material constants that govern coercivity in bulk magnetic alloys. The two distinguishing features of our coercivity tool are that: (a) we introduce a large localized disturbance, such as a spike-like magnetic domain, that provides a nucleation barrier for magnetization reversal; and (b) we account for magneto-elastic energy -- however small -- in addition to the anisotropy and magnetostatic energy terms. We apply this coercivity tool to show that the interactions between local instabilities and material constants, such as anisotropy and magnetostriction constants, are key factors that govern magnetic coercivity in bulk alloys. Using our model, we show that coercivity is minimum at the permalloy composition (Fe-21.5Ni-78.5) at which the alloys anisotropy constant is not zero. We systematically vary the values of the anisotropy and magnetostriction constants, around the permalloy composition, and identify new combinations of material constants at which coercivity is small. More broadly, our coercivity tool provides a theoretical framework to potentially discover novel magnetic materials with low coercivity.
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