[Wien] Strategy for a large slab with SP and SOC

pluto pluto at physics.ucdavis.edu
Mon Jun 19 09:51:11 CEST 2023


Dear Prof. Blaha, Marks,

Thank you for your comments, they solved my problem immediately!

It "magically" works with init_lapw -prec 1 -ecut 0.999 :-)

Why -ecut 0.999 and not -ecut 1? Is the consequence of this only in not 
having core-levels (I don't need them in this case)?

I converged, and then continued with a larger klist, but the results are 
nearly identical.

WTe2 that I am calculating is semimetallic, therefore I used -prec 1 and 
not -prec 1n. Also, I am replicating what has been already calculated by 
several groups (for the purpose of a more detailed spin/orbital 
character study), therefore I know what the result for the band energies 
should be.

Best,
Lukasz




On 2023-06-17 08:47, Laurence Marks wrote:
> In addition to what Peter said, pay careful attention to how you setup
> the slab calculation. WTe2 has a band gap of 1.0 eV, and it may be
> less with PBE. I suggest checking your bulk band gap first.
> 
> With a small gap surface, TEMPS is needed and getting the positions
> right (-min) and a valence neutral surface will matter. You will need
> to converge density and positions without soc. If you don't setup the
> surface right GIGO and if will be horribly unstable. (STIFF in
> case.inm may help.) With GIGO the physics is wrong so your
> calculations will be meaningless.
> 
> ---
> Professor Laurence Marks (Laurie)
> Department of Materials Science and Engineering
> Northwestern University
> www.numis.northwestern.edu [1]
> "Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what
> nobody else has thought" Albert Szent-Györgyi
> 
> On Sat, Jun 17, 2023, 09:01 Peter Blaha <peter.blaha at tuwien.ac.at>
> wrote:
> 
>> Your 4 points are not really recommended in the first place.
>> 
>> If it is a scf convergence problem (which I doubt):  grep:DIS
>> case.scf
>> . Does it look like divergence ?
>> 
>> You need to find which eigenvalue causes the ghostband, from which
>> atom
>> and angular momentum.
>> 
>> See *scf2* and *output2* files.
>> 
>> Once you know this, look into case.scf1 to see how the LOs and
>> energy
>> parameters for this state are set and you probably have to modyfy
>> case.in1(c).
>> 
>> PS: Use  init_lapw -prec 1n   at the beginning, maybe with -ecut
>> 0.999 .
>> 
>> PS: I would NOT include HDLOs, if I had ghostbands. Mixing with
>> PRATT
>> helps only in very few cases, not really recommended for "normal"
>> calculations.
>> 
>> PPS: I hope you use   runsp_c_lapw   for something like WTe2 ?
>> 
>> Am 17.06.2023 um 00:28 schrieb pluto via Wien:
>>> Dear Prof. Blaha, dear All,
>>> 
>>> Thank you for the comment on slab strategy, this helps a lot.
>>> 
>>> I have more specific question: for a large WTe2 slab (60 atoms),
>> which
>>> is a material of low-symmetry that has a polarity also in the
>>> out-of-plane direction, I am getting ghostbands in lapw2 after few
>> 
>>> iterations. What is a good strategy to fix this?
>>> 
>>> I was thinking of:
>>> 
>>> 1. init_lapw -hdlo
>>> 2. Low mixing (like 0.05) with PRATT
>>> 3. Decrease RMT (from first tests, with RMT 2.5 ghostbands seem to
>> 
>>> appear after around 3 iterations, with 2.2 after many iterations)
>>> 4. Increase RKmax
>>> 
>>> 3 and 4 are probably computationally expensive...
>>> 
>>> I did several tests without SOC, I was typically using something
>> like:
>>> 
>>> init_lapw -sp -b -numk 100 -hdlo -fermit 0.002
>>> 
>>> Maybe other settings are critical?
>>> 
>>> Bulk calculation converges very easily (first without and then
>> with
>>> SOC) with default settings like
>>> 
>>> init_lapw -sp -b -numk 2000
>>> 
>>> bulk bands look like the literature, and are practically the same
>> with
>>> RMT 2.2 and RMT 2.5.
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> Lukasz
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 2023-06-16 16:45, Peter Blaha wrote:
>>>> No,this is not a good strategy.
>>>> 
>>>> From a converged non-spin-polarized calculation you cannot come
>>>> (easily) to a spin-polarized solution.
>>>> 
>>>> So   1) is only good if you want to quote how much more stable a
>> SP
>>>> solution is compared to a non-SP.
>>>> 
>>>> 2 + 3 is a good practice. You gain insight how large are the
>> changes
>>>> and on what atoms due to SO coupling.
>>>> 
>>>> ------------------------
>>>> 
>>>> In terms of efficiency for large cases, I'd in particular
>> preconverge
>>>> with a course k-mesh and later on refine.
>>>> 
>>>> ---------------------------
>>>> 
>>>> Every runsp cycle starts with a case.clmsum/up/dn file.
>>>> 
>>>> These files can come from an initialization, but of course also
>> from
>>>> any prior scf calculation (eg. with lower k-mesh or without SO).
>> Of
>>>> course, a restore_lapw ... gives you all files necessary to run
>>>> another scf cycle.
>>>> 
>>>> -NI would keep old broyden files, but after a "save_lapw" they
>> are
>>>> gone anyway.  -NI is useful if you want to continue a scf,
>> because eg.
>>>> the first runsp stopped after 40 cycles and did not reach
>> convergence
>>>> yet.
>>>> 
>>>> Am 16.06.2023 um 10:44 schrieb pluto via Wien:
>>>>> Dear All,
>>>>> 
>>>>> I just would like to confirm the step-by-step convergence
>> strategy
>>>>> for the large slab with SP and SOC (it refers in general to
>>>>> spin-momentum locked non-magnetic TMDC, but can be any other
>> material).
>>>>> 
>>>>> Is the following correct:
>>>>> 
>>>>> 1. Converge without SP and without SOC, and save_lapw e.g. as
>>>>> CONV_NO_SP_NO_SOC so it can be used in another directory or on
>>>>> another computer for the next steps
>>>>> 2. Use this as a starting point to converge with SP, and
>> save_lapw
>>>>> as CONV_W_SP_NO_SOC (one can also restore_lapw in another
>> directory
>>>>> and start there)
>>>>> 3. Use this as a starting point to converge with SP and with SOC
>> 
>>>>> (and save_lapw to have it for the future)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I often start with step 3 right away, but I think for a really
>> large
>>>>> system this might be really inefficient.
>>>>> 
>>>>> How does the program know to use the starting density from the
>>>>> previous step?
>>>>> Does restore_lapw creates the necessary files when I transfer to
>> the
>>>>> new directory?
>>>>> Is -NI or some other setting in run_lapw important here?
>>>>> 
>>>>> At the moment I am using an older cluster with many cores and
>> use
>>>>> k-parallel. Still didn't manage with MPI, but maybe it is not
>> needed
>>>>> for what I want because my klist file is typically 50-80
>> k-points,
>>>>> depending on the symmetry of the system. I use the QTL program
>> quite
>>>>> a lot so having it parallellized would sometimes speed the
>> things up
>>>>> a bit for me.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> Lukasz
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Wien mailing list
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>> 
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>> 
>> --
>> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Peter Blaha,  Inst. f. Materials Chemistry, TU Vienna, A-1060 Vienna
>> Phone: +43-158801165300
>> Email: peter.blaha at tuwien.ac.at
>> WWW:   http://www.imc.tuwien.ac.at      WIEN2k: http://www.wien2k.at
>> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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