No Arabic abstract
Within the framework of the full potential projector-augmented wave methodology, we present a promising low-scaling $GW$ implementation. It allows for quasiparticle calculations with a scaling that is cubic in the system size and linear in the number of $k$ points used to sample the Brillouin zone. This is achieved by calculating the polarizability and self-energy in the real space and imaginary time domain. The transformation from the imaginary time to the frequency domain is done by an efficient discrete Fourier transformation with only a few nonuniform grid points. Fast Fourier transformations are used to go from real space to reciprocal space and vice versa. The analytic continuation from the imaginary to the real frequency axis is performed by exploiting Thieles reciprocal difference approach. Finally, the method is applied successfully to predict the quasiparticle energies and spectral functions of typical semiconductors (Si, GaAs, SiC, and ZnO), insulators (C, BN, MgO, and LiF), and metals (Cu and SrVO$_3$). The results are compared with conventional $GW$ calculations. Good agreement is achieved, highlighting the strength of the present method.
We present quasiparticle (QP) energies from fully self-consistent $GW$ (sc$GW$) calculations for a set of prototypical semiconductors and insulators within the framework of the projector-augmented wave methodology. To obtain converged results, both finite basis-set corrections and $k$-point corrections are included, and a simple procedure is suggested to deal with the singularity of the Coulomb kernel in the long-wavelength limit, the so called head correction. It is shown that the inclusion of the head corrections in the sc$GW$ calculations is critical to obtain accurate QP energies with a reasonable $k$-point set. We first validate our implementation by presenting detailed results for the selected case of diamond, and then we discuss the converged QP energies, in particular the band gaps, for a set of gapped compounds and compare them to single-shot $G_0W_0$, QP self-consistent $GW$, and previously available sc$GW$ results as well as experimental results.
The search for new materials, based on computational screening, relies on methods that accurately predict, in an automatic manner, total energy, atomic-scale geometries, and other fundamental characteristics of materials. Many technologically important material properties directly stem from the electronic structure of a material, but the usual workhorse for total energies, namely density-functional theory, is plagued by fundamental shortcomings and errors from approximate exchange-correlation functionals in its prediction of the electronic structure. At variance, the $GW$ method is currently the state-of-the-art {em ab initio} approach for accurate electronic structure. It is mostly used to perturbatively correct density-functional theory results, but is however computationally demanding and also requires expert knowledge to give accurate results. Accordingly, it is not presently used in high-throughput screening: fully automatized algorithms for setting up the calculations and determining convergence are lacking. In this work we develop such a method and, as a first application, use it to validate the accuracy of $G_0W_0$ using the PBE starting point, and the Godby-Needs plasmon pole model ($G_0W_0^textrm{GN}$@PBE), on a set of about 80 solids. The results of the automatic convergence study utilized provides valuable insights. Indeed, we find correlations between computational parameters that can be used to further improve the automatization of $GW$ calculations. Moreover, we find that $G_0W_0^textrm{GN}$@PBE shows a correlation between the PBE and the $G_0W_0^textrm{GN}$@PBE gaps that is much stronger than that between $GW$ and experimental gaps. However, the $G_0W_0^textrm{GN}$@PBE gaps still describe the experimental gaps more accurately than a linear model based on the PBE gaps.
We report the first observation of coherent surface states on cubic perovskite oxide SrVO3(001) thin films through spectroscopic imaging scanning tunneling microscopy. A direct link between the observed atomic-scale interference patterns and the formation of a dxy-derived surface state is supported by first-principles calculations. Furthermore, we show that the apical oxygens on the topmost VO2 plane play a critical role in controlling the spectral weight of the observed coherent surface state.
We analyze a data set comprising 370 GW band structures composed of 61716 quasiparticle (QP) energies of two-dimensional (2D) materials spanning 14 crystal structures and 52 elements. The data results from PAW plane wave based one-shot G$_0$W$_0$@PBE calculations with full frequency integration. We investigate the distribution of key quantities like the QP self-energy corrections and renormalization factor $Z$ and explore their dependence on chemical composition and magnetic state. The linear QP approximation is identified as a significant error source and propose schemes for controlling and drastically reducing this error at low computational cost. We analyze the reliability of the $1/N_text{PW}$ basis set extrapolation and find that is well-founded with narrow distributions of $r^2$ peaked very close to 1. Finally, we explore the validity of the scissors operator approximation concluding that it is generally not valid for reasonable error tolerances. Our work represents a step towards the development of automatized workflows for high-throughput G$_0$W$_0$ band structure calculations for solids.
We report on the importance of GW self-energy corrections for the electronic structure of light actinides in the weak-to-intermediate coupling regime. Our study is based on calculations of the band structure and total density of states of Np, U, and Pu using a one-shot GW approximation that includes spin-orbit coupling within a full potential LAPW framework. We also present RPA screened effective Coulomb interactions for the f-electron orbitals for different lattice constants, and show that there is an increased contribution from electron-electron correlation in these systems for expanded lattices. We find a significant amount of electronic correlation in these highly localized electronic systems.