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Mauricio Rodriguez-Mayorga

Publications and source records attributed to Mauricio Rodriguez-Mayorga.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Stability and optoelectronic properties of oligothiophene molecules confined in boron-nitride nanotubes : A many-body theoretical approach

We investigate the structural and optoelectronic properties of oligothiophene (nT) molecules encapsulated in boron-nitride (BN) nanotubes using density functional theory, many-body GW and Bethe-Salpeter equation approaches. We show that the binding energy is maximized for tube diameters of approximately 10 {\AA}, decreasing gradually for larger diameters. The nT molecules can slide along the tube with a corrugation potential smaller than room temperature thermal energy, promoting their head-to-tail aggregation. Regarding the electronic properties, we find that hybridization with the tube electronic states has a much smaller effect than that of screening, which can close the nT photoemission gap by as much as an eV. A simple model for the polarization of the BN tube demonstrates how these polarization effects decrease with increasing nT molecule length and BN tube diameter. Compared to the gas phase optical properties, structural relaxation, hybridization, and screening can redshift the absorption onset by up to 250 meV for isolated intercalated nTs. Additionally, the study of a head-to-tail sexithiophene dimer reveals an exciton-exciton interaction that splits the absorption onset into a lowest bright exciton, separated by approximately 75 meV from a dark peak. This suggests possible collective effects upon the formation of nT chains inside BN tubes. Our results confirm and clarify experimental data, mitigating the conclusion that insulating BN tubes just act as a protecting environment for encapsulated molecules.

cond-mat.mes-hall

$GW$ reduced density matrix from iterated linearized Dyson equation

Iterating the Dyson equation with the static part of the self-energy leads to a concise and possibly improved expression of the one-body reduced density matrix from any self-energy approximation. Here we apply the procedure to Hedin's $GW$ approximation. The non-iterated $GW$ based density matrix was already known to yield accurate density matrices for molecular systems. We show that the Dyson-equation-based procedure is equivalent to the so-called variational Z-vector approach applied to the Random-Phase approximation energy functional, but only in the case of a Hartree-Fock mean-field starting point. When a generalized Kohn-Sham scheme is employed instead, the two approaches differ. By comparing the density matrix for a benchmark set of 34 small molecules to coupled-cluster reference values, we conclude that the iterated Dyson equation indeed produces improved density matrices for molecular systems. Interestingly, we observe that the excitation rank of the reference coupled-cluster matters much and that the inclusion of triple excitations (CCSDT) quantitatively changes the conclusions of the benchmark as compared to single and double excitations coupled-cluster (CCSD).

physics.chem-ph

Abinit 2025: New Capabilities for the Predictive Modeling of Solids and Nanomaterials

Abinit is a widely used scientific software package implementing density functional theory and many related functionalities for excited states and response properties. This paper presents the novel features and capabilities, both technical and scientific, which have been implemented over the past 5 years. This evolution occurred in the context of evolving hardware platforms, high-throughput calculation campaigns, and the growing use of machine learning to predict properties based on databases of first principles results. We present new methodologies for ground states with constrained charge, spin or temperature; for density functional perturbation theory extensions to flexoelectricity and polarons; and for excited states in many-body frameworks including GW, dynamical mean field theory, and coupled cluster. Technical advances have extended abinit high-performance execution to graphical processing units and intensive parallelism. Second principles methods build effective models on top of first principles results to scale up in length and time scales. Finally, workflows have been developed in different community frameworks to automate \abinit calculations and enable users to simulate hundreds or thousands of materials in controlled and reproducible conditions.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci

Partition of Optical Properties Into Orbital Contributions

Nonlinear optical properties (NLOPs) play a major role in photonics, electro-optics and optoelectronics, and other fields of modern optics. The design of new NLO molecules and materials has benefited from the development of computational tools to analyze the relationship between the electronic structure of molecules and its optical response. In this paper, we present a new means to analyze the response property through the partition of NLOPs in terms of orbital contributions (PNOC). This tool can be used to obtain a local representation of the NLOPs, providing a powerful visualization aid to connect the magnitude of the optical property with some parts of the molecule. Unlike other methods to analyze NLOPs, the PNOC decomposes the optical property into orbitals of the unperturbed system, furnishing this method with the ability to assess the performance of single- and multi-determinant electronic structure methods. PNOC can be also used to design small basis sets for an accurate description of large systems, saving a substantial amount of computer time for the calculation of optical properties.

physics.chem-ph

Bonding Description of the Harpoon Mechanism

The lowest-lying states of LiH have been widely used to develop and calibrate many different methods in quantum mechanics. In this paper we show that the electron-transfer processes occurring in these two states are a difficult test for chemical bonding descriptors and can be used to assess new bonding descriptors on its ability to recognize the harpoon mechanism. To this aim, we study the bond formation mechanism in a series of diatomic molecules. In all studied electron-reorganization mechanisms, the maximal electron-transfer variation point along the bond formation path occurs when about half electron has been transferred from one atom to another. If the process takes places through a harpoon mechanism, this point of the reaction path coincides with the avoided crossing. The electron sharing indices and one-dimensional plots of the electron localization function and the Laplacian of the electron density along the molecular axis can be used to monitor the bond formation in diatomics and provide a distinction between the harpoon mechanism and a regular electron-reorganization process.

physics.chem-ph