Improved Description of the Structure of Molecular and Layered Crystals: Ab Initio DFT Calculations with van der Waals Corrections

Author(s)
Tomas Bucko, Juergen Hafner, Sebastian Lebegue, János G. Angyan
Abstract

The implementation of technique for full structural optimizations of complex periodic systems in the DFT-PAW package VASP, including the volume and shape of the unit cell and the internal coordinates of the atoms, together with a correction that allows an appropriate modeling of London dispersion forces, as given by the DFT-D2 approach of Grimme [Grimme, S. J. Comp. Chem. 2006, 27, 1787], is reported. Dispersion corrections are calculated not only for the forces acting on the atoms, but also for the stresses on the unit cell. This permits a simultaneous optimization of all degrees of freedom. Benchmark results on a series of prototype systems are presented and compared to results obtained by other methods and experimental data. it is demonstrated that the computationally inexpensive DFT-D2 scheme yields reasonable predictions for the structure, bulk moduli, and cohesive energies of weakly bonded materials.

Organisation(s)
Computational Materials Physics
External organisation(s)
Université Henri-Poincaré (Nancy I)
Journal
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Part A: Molecules, Spectroscopy, Kinetics, Environment and General Theory
Volume
114
Pages
11814-11824
No. of pages
11
ISSN
1089-5639
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/jp106469x
Publication date
2010
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103018 Materials physics
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/e1edc525-2d6d-4ff4-8533-47497927769e