4.1. Example: band structure of silicon

Firstly, we obtain the ground state density determining the Hamiltonian to be used in the band structure calculation.

info.calculationType = 'self-consistent'
info.savepath = './results/si_real_scf';
element(1).species = 'Si';
element(1).path = './Si_TM_LDA.mat';
atom.xyz = 10.25 * ...
   [[     0         0         0]
    [0.2500    0.2500    0.2500]];
atom.element = ones(2,1);
domain.latvec = 10.25/2*[0,1,1;1,0,1;1,1,0];
domain.lowres = 0.5;
diffop.method = 'fft';
functional.list = {'XC_GGA_X_PBE','XC_GGA_C_PBE'};
kpoint.gridn = [5,5,5];

The keywords are described below.

  • info.calculationType is a string determining the nature of the calculation. If it is set to self-consistent as it is here, the Kohn-Sham equation is solved self-consistently and the equilibrium ground-state density is saved upon completion of the calculation;

  • info.savepath is a string containing the path to the results file. RESCU uses two files to save the data. One file is an HDF5 file which contains all the distributed arrays (e.g. density, kinetic energy density, wavefunctions) and the other file is a MAT-file which contains the rest of the results (e.g. total energy, Kohn-Sham energies, forces). In the present example, the files ./results/si_real_scf.h5 and ./results/si_real_scf.mat will be created;

  • element(1).species is a string containing the label of element(1);

  • element(1).path is a string containing the path to the pseudo-potential file associated with element(1);

  • atom.xyz is an array containing the atom Cartesian coordinates;

  • atom.element is an array containing the element number associated with each atom. All eight atoms are element(1);

  • domain.latvec is an array containing three lattice row vectors;

  • domain.lowres is a number defining the grid resolution in Bohr radii;

  • diffop.method is a string determining the method used to compute derivatives. Fast Fourier transforms will be used here;

  • functional.list cell array of strings containing the names of the functionals included in the DFT calculation; we use the PBE exchange correlation functional [PBE];

  • kpoint.gridn use a 5\(\times\)5\(\times\)5 uniform grid to sample reciprocal space.

RESCU is executed as follows

rescu -i si_real_scf

The next step is calculating the band structure. RESCU is notified to do a band structure calculation through the keyword info.calculationType. The path to the converged density is passed using the keyword rho.in. Most of the self-consistent calculation input should be reused as the system remains the same. Redundant data is therefore read from rho.in. The output path must be modified, otherwise the self-consistent results will be overwritten. Finally, the kpoint keywords should also be different.

info.calculationType = 'band-structure'
info.savepath = './results/si_real_bs';
kpoint.type = 'line';
kpoint.gridn = 32;
kpoint.sympoints = {'L','G','X','W','K'};
rho.in = './results/si_real_scf';

The new keywords are described below.

  • info.calculationType is a string determining the nature of the calculation. If it is set to band-structure, the eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian are calculated. There is no self-consistent procedure involved;

  • kpoint.type is the string ’line’ which tells RESCU to compute a line going through the k-points defined by kpoint.sympoints and having a total of kpoint.gridn;

  • kpoint.gridn use 32 point along the line defined by kpoint.sympoints;

  • kpoint.sympoints cell array containing the reduced coordinates or conventional labels (FCC labels in the present example).

  • rho.in the path of the file containing the self-consistent density. Here we point to the result from the calculation done above.

For a band structure calculation, RESCU is executed as follows

rescu -i si_real_scf

Upon completion, RESCU will write the basic band structure data in BandStructure.txt. The first three lines give the number of high-symmetry k-points, their labels (e.g. \(L, \Gamma, X\) for an FCC crystal) and their k-point indices. The next lines gives the total number of k-points (\(n_k\), bands \(n_b\) and spin degrees of freedom \(n_s\)). For example,

5                   # num high symmetry points
L G X W K           # label high symmetry points
1 21 44 55 63       # indices high symmetry points
63 10 1             # nk, nb, ns

Then comes the k-point fractional coordinates, i.e. a block of \(n_k\) lines with three coordinates. Finally, there are the energies, i.e. a block of \(n_k\) lines with \(n_b\) numbers. If the simulation included spin, that last block is repeated twice. Additional data is found in the band structure stored in ./results/si_real_bs.mat.

4.2. Band structure plot

Once the band structure calculation is over, the results can be read directly from the output files. RESCU also has an automated plotting option. Suppose that the results are stored in ./results/si_real_bs.mat, then they can be plotted typing

rescu -p ./results/si_real_bs.mat

This will read ./results/si_real_bs.mat, display a plot of the band structure, and save the figure to si_real_bs_bs.fig. By default, the figure is saved as a MATLAB figure and _bs is appended to the input file’s name. It is also possible to determine the name and extension of the output file as follows

rescu -p ./results/si_real_bs.mat EvsK_si.png

This would save the figure as a PNG file named EvsK_si.png. The resulting figure should look like Fig. 4.2.1. RESCU read the Fermi level off the input file and shift the energies such that the Fermi level is zero. The k-point labels or coordinates appear in the ordinate axis.

../../../_images/evsk_si.png

Fig. 4.2.1 Silicon band structure

[PBE]

Perdew, John P., Kieron Burke, and Matthias Ernzerhof. Generalized gradient approximation made simple (vol 77, pg 3865, 1996). Physical review letters 78.7 (1997): 1396-1396.