[Wien] density matrix is not positive

Peter Blaha pblaha at theochem.tuwien.ac.at
Mon Jan 6 07:03:58 CET 2020


What has lower :ENE:   FM  or AFM ???
This should give you a hint which state is the ground state (or at least 
more stable).

Remember my hint with spin-orbit !!!

And finally: "Play with the density matrix". Compare the dmats printed 
in the scf2up files of AFM and FM solutions. Are they the same ??

Try to occupy one of the partially filled orbitals fully and make 
another one empty. (case.dmatup/dn). Then:  x orb -up/dn   and
runsp -orbc (untile crude convergence), then runsp -orb

Am 06.01.2020 um 02:02 schrieb Fan:
> According to you and Prof. Marks, I tried the AFM configuration for Nd, 
> everything went very well and it converged quickly even with finer 
> converge conditions, but 4f states still reside near Ef and still give a 
> half-metal solution. In fact, despite the existing literature, we 
> synthesized this compound ourselves, XRD and SEM show that it is the 
> compound we are looking for. However, it seems that it should be an 
> insulator when close to 0K. That is why I find the 4f states crossing Ef 
> very troublesome. Yes, it is a strange material, I guess I just have to 
> go deeper.
> 
> Fan
> 
> On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 6:50 PM Peter Blaha <pblaha at theochem.tuwien.ac.at 
> <mailto:pblaha at theochem.tuwien.ac.at>> wrote:
> 
>     I repeated your calculations. Yes, intermediately I also got these
>     density matrix warnings, but NOT with final convergence.
> 
>     Most likely, this warning should be removed from mixer (Laurence !), as
>     it does not give any meaningful hint or it should be printed only if
>     one
>     is nearly converged (:DIS is lower than ...)
> 
>     I have a few other comments:
> 
>     You seem to start a Ferro-magnetic calculation. As was mentioned
>     before,
>     maybe an AFM structure is more stable. So check other possible magnetic
>     configurations.
> 
>     You seem to start with init_lapw, and thus with the default
>     (ferromagnetic) case.inst
> 
>     For magnetic oxides it is highly recommended to start with:
> 
>     instgen -ask
>     This lets you define a possible AFM arrangement and in particular you
>     should set the O-atoms as non-magnetic. This save a lot of scf cycles.
> 
>     -rkmax 7.5 is quite some "overkill". This rkmax value is for the small
>     O-atoms and RKmax=6 (beginning) and 7 (final convergence) is sufficient.
> 
>     On the other hand, a HDLO for Nd-4f states is highly recommended.
> 
>     I never start the scf-cycle with "-orb" right after intitialization,
>     but
>     always do (at least a crude) GGA calculation before switching on -orb.
>     Otherwise you may even more likely end up in some local minimum but not
>     the ground state.
> 
>     I got a half-metallic solution with a spin-up 4f peak down at -3.5 eV
>     and another one at EF. You expected that the 4f states are all removed
>     from EF, but your compound seems to be "special" (is this compound
>     experimentally known ??).
> 
>     The stoichiometry of Nd4 Ni3 O8  suggests Ni2+ ions, leaving a (Nd4)10+
>     charge state, i.e. a Nd2.5+ state, which is very unusual. But I got 34f
>     electrons, which hints to a Nd3+ and in fact one of your Oxygens has
>     p-states above EF.
> 
>     With this half-filled 4f-DOS peak at EF also spin-orbit could be very
>     important.
> 
>     And as always in such LDA+U calculations, play with the initial
>     case.dmat file. In my case I have 2 4f orbitals "fully" occupied (and
>     thus shifted down), but 2 others are partly occupied (close to 1/2) and
>     thus not much shifted and pinned to EF.
> 
>     As mentioned before, additional symmetry splitting with AFM for the 2
>     equivalent Nd atoms may lead to further splitting.
> 
> 
>     Am 03.01.2020 um 10:30 schrieb Fan:
>      > Thank you for your reply, Prof. Blaha. In fact, when I change
>     parameters
>      > in inorb, I always do 'rm case.dmat*' and 'rm case.vorb*' , so I
>     think
>      > it should not be the problem. But I do value your suggestions, so I
>      > started a new session, only used the struct file of Nd4Ni3O8
>     which is
>      > attached here, and then
>      > init_lapw -b -rkmax 7.5 -numk 2000 -sp -vxc 5 -lvns 6
>      > create inorb and indm by copying them from templates and modify them
>      > accordingly
>      > runsp_lapw -p -orb -i 200 -ec 0.0001 -cc 0.001 -NI
>      > during the scf cycle, QTL-B warning appeared, but the value was very
>      > small (2~3, still could be a trouble?), the density matrix warnings
>      > appeared at about the 20th cycle and persisted.
>      >
>      > With regards.
>      >
>      > Fan
>      >
>      >
>      >
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