arXiv subjects

Xuecheng Shao

Publications and source records attributed to Xuecheng Shao.

25 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Nonlocal and nonadiabatic Pauli potential for time-dependent orbital-free density functional theory

Time-dependent orbital-free density functional theory (TD-OFDFT) is an efficient ab-initio method for calculating the electronic dynamics of large systems. In comparison to standard TD-DFT, it computes only a single electronic state regardless of system size, but it requires an additional time-dependent Pauli potential term. We propose a nonadiabatic and nonlocal Pauli potential whose main ingredients are the time-dependent particle and current densities. Our calculations of the optical spectra of metallic and semiconductor clusters indicate that nonlocal and nonadiabatic TD-OFDFT performs accurately for metallic systems and semiquantitatively for semiconductors. This work opens the door to wide applicability of TD-OFDFT for nonequilibrium electron and electron-nuclear dynamics of materials.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2021

GGA-Level Subsystem DFT Achieves Sub-kcal/mol Accuracy Intermolecular Interactions by Mimicking Nonlocal Functionals

The key feature of nonlocal kinetic energy functionals is their ability to reduce to the Thomas-Fermi functional in the regions of high density and to the von Weizsäcker functional in the region of low density/high density gradient. This behavior is crucial when these functionals are employed in subsystem DFT simulations to approximate the nonadditive kinetic energy. We propose a GGA nonadditive kinetic energy functional which mimics the good behavior of nonlocal functionals retaining the computational complexity of typical semilocal functionals. The new functional reproduces Kohn-Sham DFT and benchmark CCSD(T) interaction energies of weakly interacting dimers in the S22-5 and S66 test sets with a mean absolute deviation well below 1 kcal/mol.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

An Efficient DFT Solver for Nanoscale Simulations and Beyond

We present the One-orbital Ensemble Self-Consistent Field (OE-SCF) method, an {alternative} orbital-free DFT solver that extends the applicability of DFT to system sizes beyond the nanoscale while retaining the accuracy required to be predictive. OE-SCF is an iterative solver where the (typically computationally expensive) Pauli potential is treated as an external potential and updated after each iteration. Because only up to a dozen iterations are needed to reach convergence, OE-SCF dramatically outperforms current orbital-free DFT solvers. Employing merely a single CPU, we carried out the largest ab initio simulation for silicon-based materials to date. OE-SCF is able to converge the energy of bulk-cut Si nanoparticles as a function of their diameter up to 16 nm, for the first time reproducing known empirical results. We model polarization and interface charge transfer when a Si slab is sandwiched between two metal slabs where lattice matching mandates a very large slab size. Additionally, OE-SCF opens the door to adopt even more accurate functionals in orbital-free DFT simulations while still tackling systems sizes beyond the nanoscale.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

eQE 2.0: Subsystem DFT Beyond GGA Functionals

By adopting a divide-and-conquer strategy, subsystem-DFT (sDFT) can dramatically reduce the computational cost of large-scale electronic structure calculations. The key ingredients of sDFT are the nonadditive kinetic energy and exchange-correlation functionals which dominate it's accuracy. Even though, semilocal nonadditive functionals find a broad range of applications, their accuracy is somewhat limited especially for those systems where achieving balance between exchange-correlation interactions on one side and nonadditive kinetic energy on the other is crucial. In eQE 2.0, we improve dramatically the accuracy of sDFT simulations by (1) implementing nonlocal nonadditive kinetic energy functionals based on the LMGP family of functionals; (2) adapting Quantum ESPRESSO's implementation of rVV10 and vdW-DF nonlocal exchange-correlation functionals to be employed in sDFT simulations; (3) implementing "deorbitalized" meta GGA functionals (e.g., SCAN-L). We carefully assess the performance of the newly implemented tools on the S22-5 test set. eQE 2.0 delivers excellent interaction energies compared to conventional Kohn-Sham DFT and CCSD(T). The improved performance does not come at a loss of computational efficiency. We show that eQE 2.0 with nonlocal nonadditive functionals retains the same linear scaling behavior achieved in eQE 1.0 with semilocal nonadditive functionals.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

DFTpy: An efficient and object-oriented platform for orbital-free DFT simulations

In silico materials design is hampered by the computational complexity of Kohn-Sham DFT, which scales cubically with the system size. Owing to the development of new-generation kinetic energy density functionals (KEDFs), orbital-free DFT (OFDFT, a linear-scaling method) can now be successfully applied to a large class of semiconductors and such finite systems as quantum dots and metal clusters. In this work, we present DFTpy, an open source software implementing OFDFT written entirely in Python 3 and outsourcing the computationally expensive operations to third-party modules, such as NumPy and SciPy. When fast simulations are in order, DFTpy exploits the fast Fourier transforms (FFTs) from PyFFTW. New-generation, nonlocal and density-dependent-kernel KEDFs are made computationally efficient by employing linear splines and other methods for fast kernel builds. We showcase DFTpy by solving for the electronic structure of a million-atom system of aluminum metal which was computed on a single CPU. The Python 3 implementation is object-oriented, opening the door to easy implementation of new features. As an example, we present a time-dependent OFDFT implementation (hydrodynamic DFT) which we use to compute the spectra of small metal cluster recovering qualitatively the time-dependent Kohn-Sham DFT result. The Python code base allows for easy implementation of APIs. We showcase the combination of DFTpy and ASE for molecular dynamics simulations (NVT) of liquid metals. DFTpy is released under the MIT license.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2016

A linear scaling method to evaluate the ion-electron potential of crystalline solids

We propose a simple linear scaling expression in reciprocal space for evaluating the ion--electron potential of crystalline solids. The expression replaces the long-range ion--electron potential with an equivalent localized charge distribution and corresponding boundary conditions on the unit cell. Given that no quadratic scaling structure factor is required---as used in traditional methods---the expression shows inherent linear behavior, and is well suited to simulating large-scale systems within orbital-free density functional theory. The scheme is implemented in the ATLAS software package and benchmarked by using a solid Mg bcc lattice containing tens of thousands of atoms in the unit cell. The test results show that the method can efficiently model large crystals with high computational accuracy.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

ATLAS: A Real-Space Finite-Difference Implementation of Orbital-Free Density Functional Theory

Orbital-free density functional theory (OF-DFT) is a promising method for large-scale quantum mechanics simulation as it provides a good balance of accuracy and computational cost. Its applicability to large-scale simulations has been aided by progress in constructing kinetic energy functionals and local pseudopotentials. However, the widespread adoption of OF-DFT requires further improvement in its efficiency and robustly implemented software. Here we develop a real-space finite-difference method for the numerical solution of OF-DFT in periodic systems. Instead of the traditional self-consistent method, a powerful scheme for energy minimization is introduced to solve the Euler--Lagrange equation. Our approach engages both the real-space finite-difference method and a direct energy-minimization scheme for the OF-DFT calculations. The method is coded into the ATLAS software package and benchmarked using periodic systems of solid Mg, Al, and Al$_{3}$Mg. The test results show that our implementation can achieve high accuracy, efficiency, and numerical stability for large-scale simulations.

physics.comp-ph↗