No Arabic abstract
We present a method for calculating the electronic structure of correlated materials based on a truly first-principles LDA+U scheme. Recently we suggested how to calculate U from first-principles, using a method which we named constrained RPA (cRPA). The input is simply the Kohn-Sham eigenfunctions and eigenvalues obtained within the LDA. In our proposed self-consistent LDA+U scheme, we calculate the LDA+U eigenfunctions and eigenvalues and use these to extract U. The updated U is then used in the next iteration to obtain a new set of eigenfunctions and eigenvalues and the iteration is continued until convergence is achieved. The most significant result is that our numerical approach is indeed stable: it is possible to find the effective exchange and correlation interaction matrix in a self-consistent way, resulting in a significant improvement over the LDA results, regarding both the bandgap in NiO and the f-band exchange spin-splitting in Gd, but some discrepancies still remain.
The so-called local density approximation plus the multi-orbital mean-field Hubbard model (LDA+U) has been implemented within the all-electron projector augmented-wave method (PAW), and then used to compute the insulating antiferromagnetic ground state of NiO and its optical properties. The electronic and optical properties have been investigated as a function of the Coulomb repulsion parameter U. We find that the value obtained from constrained LDA (U=8 eV) is not the best possible choice, whereas an intermediate value (U=5 eV) reproduces the experimental magnetic moment and optical properties satisfactorily. At intermediate U, the nature of the band gap is a mixture of charge transfer and Mott-Hubbard type, and becomes almost purely of the charge-transfer type at higher values of U. This is due to the enhancement of the oxygen 2p states near the top of the valence states with increasing U value.
A novel hybrid scheme is proposed. The {it ab initio} LDA calculation is used to construct the Wannier functions and obtain single electron and Coulomb parameters of the multiband Hubbard-type model. In strong correlation regime the electronic structure within multiband Hubbard model is calculated by the Generalized Tight-Binding (GTB) method, that combines the exact diagonalization of the model Hamiltonian for a small cluster (unit cell) with perturbation treatment of the intercluster hopping and interactions. For undoped La$_2$CuO$_4$ and Nd$_2$CuO$_4$ this scheme results in charge transfer insulators with correct values of gaps and dispersions of bands in agreement to the ARPES data.
We present results of an ab-initio study of the electronic structure of 140 rare earth compounds. Specifically we predict an electronic phase diagram of the entire range of rare earth monopnictides and monochalcogenides, composed of metallic, semiconducting and heavy fermion-like regions, and exhibiting valency transitions brought about by a complex interplay between ligand chemistry and lanthanide contraction. The calculations exploit the combined effect of a first-principles methodology, which can adequately describe the dual character of electrons, itinerant vs. localized, and high throughput computing made possible by the increasing available computational power. Our findings, including the predicted intermediate valent compounds SmO and TmSe, are in overall excellent agreement with the available experimental data. The accuracy of the approach, proven e.g. through the lattice parameters calculated to within 1.5% of the experimental values, and its ability to describe localization phenomena in solids, makes it a competitive atomistic simulation approach in the search for and design of new materials with specific physical properties and possible technological applications.
Combining the density functional theory (DFT) and the Gutzwiller variational approach, a LDA+Gutzwiller method is developed to treat the correlated electron systems from {it ab-initio}. All variational parameters are self-consistently determined from total energy minimization. The method is computationally cheaper, yet the quasi-particle spectrum is well described through kinetic energy renormalization. It can be applied equally to the systems from weakly correlated metals to strongly correlated insulators. The calculated results for SrVO$_3$, Fe, Ni and NiO, show dramatic improvement over LDA and LDA+U.
The exfoliation energy, the energy required to peel off an atomic layer from the surface of a bulk material, is of fundamental importance in the science and engineering of two-dimensional materials. Traditionally, the exfoliation energy of a material has been obtained from first principles by calculating the difference in the ground-state energy between (i) a slab of $N$ atomic layers ($N gg 1$) and (ii) a slab of $N-1$ atomic layers plus an atomic layer separated from the slab. In this paper, we prove that the exfoliation energy can be obtained exactly as the difference in the ground-state energy between a bulk material (per atomic layer) and a single isolated layer. The proposed method is (i) tremendously lower in computational cost than the traditional approach since it does not require calculations on thick slabs, (ii) still valid even if there is a surface reconstruction of any kind, (iii) capable of taking into account the relaxation of the single exfoliated layer (both in-plane lattice parameters and atomic positions), and (iv) easily combined with all kinds of many-body computational methods. As a proof of principles, we calculated exfoliation energies of graphene, hexagonal boron nitride, MoS$_2$ and phosphorene using density-functional theory. In addition, we found that the in-plane relaxation of an exfoliated layer accounts for 5% of one-layer exfoliation energy of phosphorene while it is negligible (< 0.4%) in the other cases.