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At least 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Optimized Auxiliary Functions for Robust Mitigation of Finite-Size Errors in Periodic Hybrid Density Functional Theory

When calculating properties of periodic systems at the thermodynamic limit (TDL), the dominant source of finite size error (FSE) arises from the long-range Coulomb interaction, and can manifest as a slowly converging quadrature error when approximating an integral in the reciprocal space by a finite sum. The singularity subtraction (SS) method offers a systematic approach for reducing this quadrature error and thus the FSE. Here, in this work, we first investigate the performance of the SS method in the simplest setting, aiming at reducing the FSE in exact exchange calculations by subtracting the Coulomb contribution with a single, adjustable Gaussian auxiliary function. We demonstrate that a simple fitting method can robustly estimate the optimal Gaussian width and leads to rapid convergence toward the TDL. Furthermore, we suggest new forms of the auxiliary function, whose optimal parameters could also be determined through least-squares fitting. For a range of semiconductors and insulators, the proposed auxiliary functions achieve robust, millihartree-level accuracy in hybrid density functional theory calculations, including cases with sparse k-meshes and large basis sets.

Quiton, Stephen Jon [University of California, Ber↗
DOE OSTI2025

Learning local and semi-local density functionals from exact exchange-correlation potentials and energies

Finding accurate exchange-correlation (XC) functionals remains the defining challenge in density functional theory (DFT). Despite 40 years of active development, attaining general purpose chemical accuracy is still elusive with existing functionals. We present a data-driven pathway to learn the XC functional by using the exact density, XC energy, and XC potential. While the exact densities are obtained from accurate configuration interaction (CI), the exact XC energies and XC potentials are obtained via inverse DFT calculations on the CI densities. We demonstrate how simple neural network (NN)–based local density approximation (LDA) and generalized gradient approximation (GGA), trained on just five atoms and two molecules, provide remarkable improvement in total energies and densities. Particularly, the NN-based GGA functional attains similar accuracy as the higher rung SCAN meta-GGA on various thermochemistry datasets. These results underscore the promise of using the XC potential in modeling XC functionals and can pave the way for systematic learning of increasingly accurate XC functionals.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗
DOE OSTI2026

Mixed stochastic-deterministic density functional theoretic decomposition of Kubo–Greenwood conductivities in the projector augmented wave formalism

Pairing the accuracy of the Kohn–Sham density-functional framework with the efficiency of a stochastic algorithmic approach, mixed stochastic-deterministic density functional theory (mDFT) achieves a favorable computational scaling with system sizes and electronic temperatures. We employ the recently developed mDFT formalism to investigate the dynamic charge-transport properties of systems in the warm dense matter regime. The optical conductivity spectra are computed for single- and multi- component mixtures of carbon, hydrogen, and beryllium using two complementary approaches: Kubo–Greenwood in the mDFT picture and real-time time-dependent mDFT. We further devise a decomposition of the Onsager coefficients leading up to the Kubo–Greenwood spectra to exhibit contributions from the deterministic, stochastic, and mixed electronic state transitions at different incident photon energies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Accelerating the density-functional tight-binding method using graphical processing units

Acceleration of the density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) method on single and multiple graphical processing units (GPUs) was accomplished using the MAGMA linear algebra library. Herein two major computational bottlenecks of DFTB ground-state calculations were addressed in our implementation: the Hamiltonian matrix diagonalization and the density matrix construction. The code was implemented and benchmarked on two different computer systems: (1) the SUMMIT IBM Power9 supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Leadership Computing Facility with 1–6 NVIDIA Volta V100 GPUs per computer node and (2) an in-house Intel Xeon computer with 1–2 NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPUs. The performance and parallel scalability were measured for three molecular models of 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensional chemical systems, represented by carbon nanotubes, covalent organic frameworks, and water clusters.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

Quantum Monte Carlo and Density Functional Theory Study of Strain and Magnetism in 2D 1T-VSe 2 with Charge Density Wave States

Two-dimensional (2D) 1T-VSe 2 has prompted significant interest due to the discrepancies regarding alleged ferromagnetism (FM) at room temperature, charge density wave (CDW) states, and the interplay between the two. We employed a combined Diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) and density functional theory (DFT) approach to accurately investigate the magnetic properties, CDW states, and their responses to strain in monolayer 1T-VSe 2 . Our calculations show the delicate competition between various phases, revealing critical insights into the relationship between their energetic and structural properties. Here, we performed classical Monte Carlo simulations informed by our DMC and DFT results and found the magnetic transition temperature (T c ) of the undistorted (non-CDW) FM phase to be 228 K and the distorted (CDW) phase to be 68 K. Additionally, we studied the response of biaxial strain on the energetic stability and magnetic properties of various phases of 2D 1T-VSe 2 and found that small amounts of strain can increase the T c , suggesting a promising route for engineering and enhancing magnetic behavior. Finally, we synthesized 1T-VSe 2 and performed Raman spectroscopy measurements, which were in close agreement with our calculated results, validating our computational approach. Our work emphasizes the role of highly accurate DMC methods in advancing the understanding of monolayer 1T-VSe 2 and provides a robust framework for future studies of 2D magnetic materials.

2D magnets↗
DOE OSTI2026

Toward Chemical Accuracy for Chemi- and Physisorption with an Efficient Density Functional

Understanding molecular adsorption on surfaces underpins many problems in chemistry and materials science. Accurately and efficiently describing the adsorption has been a challenging task for first-principles methods as the process can involve both short-range chemical bond formations and long-range physical interactions, e.g., van der Waals (vdW) interaction. Density functional theory presents an appealing choice for modeling adsorption reactions, although calculations with many exchange-correlation density functional approximations struggle to accurately describe both chemical and physical molecular adsorptions. Here, we propose an efficient density functional approximation that is accurate for both chemical and physical adsorption by concurrently optimizing its semilocal component and the long-range vdW correction against the prototypical adsorption CO/Pt(111) and Ar 2 binding energy curve. The resulting function opens the door to accurate and efficient modeling of general molecular adsorption.

adsorption↗
DOE OSTI2024

Approaching periodic systems in ensemble density functional theory via finite one-dimensional models

Ensemble density functional theory (EDFT) is a generalization of ground-state DFT, which is based on an exact formal theory of finite collections of a system's ground and excited states. EDFT in various forms has been shown to improve the accuracy of calculated energy level differences in isolated model systems, atoms, and molecules, but it is not yet clear how EDFT could be used to calculate band gaps for periodic systems. We extend the application of EDFT toward periodic systems by estimating the thermodynamic limit with increasingly large finite one-dimensional 'particle in a box' systems, which approach the uniform electron gas (UEG). Using ensemble-generalized Hartree and local spin density approximation exchange-correlation functionals, we find that corrections go to zero in the infinite limit, as expected for a metallic system. However, there is a correction to the effective mass, with results comparable to other calculations on 1D, 2D, and 3D UEGs, which indicates promise for non-trivial results from EDFT on periodic systems.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2023

Defect-induced states, defect-induced phase transition, and excitonic states in bent tungsten disulfide (WS 2 ) nanoribbons: Density functional vs. many body theory

Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) materials have versatile electronic and optical properties. TMD nanoribbons exhibit interesting properties due to reduced dimensionality, quantum confinement, and edge states, which make them suitable for various electronic and optoelectronic applications. In a previous work conducted by our group, we demonstrated that the edge bands evolved with bending can tune the optical properties for various widths of TMD nanoribbons. Defects are commonly present in 2D TMD materials, and can dramatically change the material properties. Here, in this following work, we investigate the interaction between the edge and the defect states in tungsten disulfide (WS 2 ) nanoribbons with lines of W- or S-atom vacancies defects under different bending conditions, using density functional theory (DFT). To gain understanding about the limits of density functional approximations, we compare results on band gaps and energies of defect states with quasiparticle GW. We reveal interesting semiconductor-metal phase transitions, suggesting potential applications in nanoelectronics or molecular electronics. We also calculate the optical absorption of the bent and defective nanoribbons with the many-body GW-BSE (Bethe-Salpeter equation) approach, revealing a tunable optical spectrum and diverse exciton states in the defective WS 2 nanoribbons.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Density Functional Tight Binding Insights into Plasmonic Silver–Platinum Nanoparticles and Alloys for Enhanced Photocatalysis

Developing accurate and efficient Slater-Koster (SK) tight-binding parameter sets is essential for quantum plasmonic studies of alloyed metal nanoparticles, as conventional time dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) calculations are computationally prohibitive for larger clusters. In this work, we develop and validate density functional tight binding (DFTB) parameter sets for both ground state (GS-SK) and excited state (ES-SK) calculations to study the structural, electronic, and optical properties of silver (Ag), platinum (Pt), and Ag–Pt nanoalloys. Our investigation of the ground state properties demonstrates that the GS-SK parameters enable DFTB to closely reproduce the electronic structures of platinum clusters with diverse sizes and geometries – showing qualitative agreement with DFT for density of states (DOS) profiles and energy levels. The ES-SK parameters accurately describe excited-state properties compared to TD-DFT reference calculations, including the broad, featureless absorption profiles of Pt that are dominated by interband transitions. Using the ES-SK parameters within a real-time TD-DFTB framework, we compute size-dependent optical absorption spectra of Ag, Pt and Ag-Pt nanocubes containing up to 1099 atoms (size ∼4.18 nm). A detailed study of Ag–Pt and Pt-Ag core–shell nanoparticles shows quenching of the Ag plasmon resonance even at monolayer coverage for Ag-Pt, but not for Pt-Ag. We also show how to define submonolayer Ag-core Pt-shell cubic structures that have similar optical properties to those generated experimentally for much larger particles, which offers potential for describing plasmon-enhanced photocatalysis. Collectively, the GS-SK and ES-SK parameter sets provide an accurate, computationally efficient approach for modeling the complex optical and electronic behavior of noble–transition metal nanostructures and their alloys.

SPR↗
DOE OSTI2025

Evaluation of Density-Functional Tight-Binding Methods for Simulation of Protic Molecular Ion Pairs

In this work, we benchmark the accuracy of the density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) method, namely the long-range corrected second-order (LC-DFTB2) and third-order (DFTB3) models, for predicting energetics of imidazolium-based ionic liquid (IL) ion pairs. We compare the DFTB models against popular density functionals such as LC-ωPBE and B3LYP, using ab initio domain-based local pair-natural orbital coupled cluster (DLPNO-CC) energies as reference. Calculations were carried out in the gas phase, as well as in aqueous solution using implicit solvent methods. We find that the LC-DFTB2 model shows excellent performance in the gas phase and agrees well with reference energies in implicit solvent, often outperforming DFTB3 predictions for complexation energetics. Our study identifies a range of opportunities for use of the LC-DFTB method and quantifies its sensitivity to protonation states and the types of chemical interactions between ion pairs.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

X-ray Thomson scattering spectra from density functional theory molecular dynamics simulations based on a modified Chihara formula

Here, we study ab initio approaches for calculating x-ray Thomson scattering spectra from density functional theory molecular dynamics simulations based on a modified Chihara formula that expresses the inelastic contribution in terms of the dielectric function. We study the electronic dynamic structure factor computed from the Mermin dielectric function using an ab initio electron-ion collision frequency in comparison to computations using a linear-response time-dependent density functional theory (LR-TDDFT) framework for hydrogen and beryllium and investigate the dispersion of free-free and bound-free contributions to the scattering signal. A separate treatment of these contributions, where only the free-free part follows the Mermin dispersion, shows good agreement with LR-TDDFT results for ambient-density beryllium, but breaks down for highly compressed matter where the bound states become pressure ionized. LR-TDDFT is used to reanalyze x-ray Thomson scattering experiments on beryllium demonstrating strong deviations from the plasma conditions inferred with traditional analytic models at small scattering angles.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Multipole Expansion of Atomic Electron Density Fluctuation Interactions in the Density-Functional Tight-Binding Method

The accuracy of the density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) method in describing noncovalent interactions is limited due to its reliance on monopole-based spherical charge densities. In this study, we present a multipole-extended second-order DFTB (mDFTB2) method that takes into account atomic dipole and quadrupole interactions. Furthermore, we combine the multipole expansion with the monopole-based third-order contribution, resulting in the mDFTB3 method. To assess the accuracy of mDFTB2 and mDFTB3, we evaluate their performance in describing noncovalent interactions, proton transfer barriers, and dipole moments. Here, our benchmark results show promising improvements even when using the existing electronic parameters optimized for the original DFTB3 model. Both mDFTB2 and mDFTB3 outperform their monopole-based counterparts, DFTB2 and DFTB3, in terms of accuracy. While mDFTB2 and mDFTB3 perform comparably for neutral and positively charged systems, mDFTB3 exhibits superior performance over mDFTB2 when dealing with negatively charged systems and proton transfers. Overall, the incorporation of the multipole expansion significantly enhances the accuracy of the DFTB method in describing noncovalent interactions and proton transfers.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

Mechanical properties of zeolite-templated carbons from approximate density functional theory calculations

Zeolite-templated carbon (ZTC) is a unique porous carbonaceous material whose structure is ordered at the nanometre scale, enabling a representative periodic description at the atomistic level. Utilizing an existing, well-defined reference model for ZTCs, a structural library of varying compositions was developed by refinement using density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) potentials parameterized for materials science applications. We first determined the quantum chemical-refined structures of models with CH, CHO, CHON, CHOB, and CHOBN compositions with various degrees of heteroatom substitution. These structural models comprise the characteristic morphological features of highly porous carbon materials, such as open-blade surfaces, edges, saddles, and closed-strut formations, spanning a range of curvatures and characteristic sizes. Second, we carried out alternating compression and expansion of the CHO model unit cell to determine the lowest energy structure as well as to obtain its bulk modulus in order to demonstrate a close connection between macroscopic observations and atomic-scale structures. Further, the agreement between experimental measurements and the computational model is remarkable and demonstrates the power of approximate density functional theory as a cost-effective computational tool with chemical accuracy for the investigation of structure/property relationships in real-world carbon-based solids.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Linearized Pair-Density Functional Theory with Spin–Orbit Coupling

Here, we include spin–orbit coupling (SOC) effects in linearized pair-density functional theory (L-PDFT), which is a multistate extension of multiconfiguration pair-density functional theory (MC-PDFT). Both 1-electron and 2-electron SOC integrals are computed using Breit-Pauli and Douglas–Kroll–Hess Hamiltonians in the atomic mean-field approximation. SO-L-PDFT removes the unphysical J-symmetry breaking observed in MC-PDFT. The accuracy of SO-L-PDFT is validated by calculations of zero-field splittings, fine-structure excitation energies, and low-energy excited-state spectra for a diverse group of atoms and molecules spanning the whole range of the periodic table, including atoms of groups 3, 11, and 13–17, the Ce 3+ and U 5+ ions, group 16 monohydrides, group 17 monoxides, lanthanide hexachlorides ([CeCl 6 ] 3− , [PrCl 6 ] 3− , and [NdCl 6 ] 3− ), actinyl ions ([UO 2 ] + , [NpO 2 ] 2+ ), and tricarbonatoactinyl complexes ([UO 2 (CO 3 ) 3 ] 5− , [NpO 2 (CO 3 ) 3 ] 4− ). We also compare the results to new spin–orbit-inclusive calculations by single-state and multistate multireference perturbation theory.

Hamiltonians↗
DOE OSTI2022

Symmetry-correct bonding in density functional theory calculations for delta phase Pu

The long-held conclusion that magnetic order in delta phase Pu makes the structure mechanically unstable in density functional theory calculations is incorrect if the magnetic order is allowed to be non-collinear. The non-collinear 3Q spin structure is intrinsically cubic and makes all structurally equivalent bonds equivalent in their bonding character. Applied to density functional theory calculations on delta phase Pu, the 3Q spin structure results in elastic constants and phonons with the correct symmetry. Finally, the calculated phonon dispersion agrees better with experiment than previous calculations, and the calculated thermal expansion shows the unique behavior seen experimentally: it is negative.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Delocalization error poisons the density-functional many-body expansion

The many-body expansion is a fragment-based approach to large-scale quantum chemistry that partitions a single monolithic calculation into manageable subsystems. This technique is increasingly being used as a basis for fitting classical force fields to electronic structure data, especially for water and aqueous ions, and for machine learning. Here, we show that the many-body expansion based on semilocal density functional theory affords wild oscillations and runaway error accumulation for ion–water interactions, typified by F − (H 2 O) N with N ≳ 15. We attribute these oscillations to self-interaction error in the density-functional approximation. The effect is minor or negligible in small water clusters, explaining why it has not been noticed previously, but grows to catastrophic proportion in clusters that are only moderately larger. This behavior can be counteracted with hybrid functionals but only if the fraction of exact exchange is ≳50%, whereas modern meta-generalized gradient approximations including ωB97X-V, SCAN, and SCAN0 are insufficient to eliminate divergent behavior. Other mitigation strategies including counterpoise correction, density correction (i.e., exchange–correlation functionals evaluated atop Hartree–Fock densities), and dielectric continuum boundary conditions do little to curtail the problematic oscillations. In contrast, energy-based screening to cull unimportant subsystems can successfully forestall divergent behavior. These results suggest that extreme caution is warranted when the many-body expansion is combined with density functional theory.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

Molecular NMR shieldings, J -couplings, and magnetizabilities from numeric atom-centered orbital based density-functional calculations

This paper reports and benchmarks a new implementation of nuclear magnetic resonance shieldings, magnetizabilities, and J-couplings for molecules within semilocal density functional theory, based on numeric atom-centered orbital (NAO) basis sets. NAO basis sets are attractive for the calculation of these nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) parameters because NAOs provide accurate atomic orbital representations especially near the nucleus, enabling high-quality results at modest computational cost. Moreover, NAOs are readily adaptable for linear scaling methods, enabling efficient calculations of large systems. Here, the paper has five main parts: (1) It reviews the formalism of density functional calculations of NMR parameters in one comprehensive text to make the mathematical background available in a self-contained way. (2) The paper quantifies the attainable precision of NAO basis sets for shieldings in comparison to specialized Gaussian basis sets, showing similar performance for similar basis set size. (3) The paper quantifies the precision of calculated magnetizabilities, where the NAO basis sets appear to outperform several established Gaussian basis sets of similar size. (4) The paper quantifies the precision of computed J-couplings, for which a group of customized NAO basis sets achieves precision of ~Hz for smaller basis set sizes than some established Gaussian basis sets. (5) The paper demonstrates that the implementation is applicable to systems beyond 1000 atoms in size.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗