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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Turning Density Functional Theory Calculations Into Molecular Mechanics Simulations : Establishing The Fluctuating Density Model For Rna Nucleobases, Christopher A. Myers Dec 2022

Turning Density Functional Theory Calculations Into Molecular Mechanics Simulations : Establishing The Fluctuating Density Model For Rna Nucleobases, Christopher A. Myers

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Molecular mechanics (MD) simulations and density functional theory (DFT) have been the backbone of computational chemistry for decades. Due to its accuracy and computational feasibility, DFT has become the go-to method for theoretically predicting interaction energies, polarizability, and other electronic properties of small molecules at the quantum mechanical level. Although less fundamental than DFT, molecular mechanics (MM) algorithms have been just as influential in the fields of biology and chemistry, owing their success to the ability to compute measurable, macroscopic quantities for systems with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of atoms at a time. Nevertheless, MD simulations would …


Computational Design Of Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Alloys And Their Applications, John Douglas Cavin May 2021

Computational Design Of Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Alloys And Their Applications, John Douglas Cavin

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The discovery of bronze as an alloy of copper and tin is arguably the earliest form of material design, dating back thousands of years. In contrast, two-dimensional materials are new to the 21st century. The research presented in this dissertation is at the intersection of alloying and two-dimensional materials. I specifically study a class of two-dimensional materials known as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). Because of the large number of transition metals, there are many combinations of TMDCs that can be alloyed, making experimental exploration of the phase space of possible alloys unwieldly. Instead, I have applied first-principles methods to study …


Full Correlation In A Multiconfigurational Study Of Bimetallic Clusters : Restricted Active Space Pair-Density Functional Theory Study Of [2fe-2s] Systems, Samuel J. Stoneburner, Davide Presti, Donald G. Truhlar, Laura Gagliardi Jan 2019

Full Correlation In A Multiconfigurational Study Of Bimetallic Clusters : Restricted Active Space Pair-Density Functional Theory Study Of [2fe-2s] Systems, Samuel J. Stoneburner, Davide Presti, Donald G. Truhlar, Laura Gagliardi

Educator Scholarship

Iron-sulfur clusters play a variety of important roles in protein chemistry, and understanding the energetics of their spin ladders is an important part of understanding these roles. Computational modeling can offer considerable insight into such problems; however, calculations performed thus far on systems with multiple transition metals have typically either been restricted to a single-configuration representation of the density, as in Kohn-Sham theory, or been limited to correlating excitations only within an active space, as in active-space self-consistent field methods. For greater reliability, a calculation should include full correlation, i.e., not only correlation internal to the active space but also …


Beyond Density Functional Theory: The Multiconfigurational Approach To Model Heterogeneous Catalysis, Samuel J. Stoneburner, Carlo Alberto Gaggioli, Christopher J. Cramer, Laura Gagliardi Jan 2019

Beyond Density Functional Theory: The Multiconfigurational Approach To Model Heterogeneous Catalysis, Samuel J. Stoneburner, Carlo Alberto Gaggioli, Christopher J. Cramer, Laura Gagliardi

Educator Scholarship

Catalytic processes are crucially important for many practical chemical applications. Heterogeneous catalysts are especially appealing because of their high stability and the relative ease with which they may be recovered and reused. Computational modeling can play an important role in the design of more catalytically active materials through the identification of reaction mechanisms and the opportunity to assess hypothetical catalysts in silico prior to experimental verification. Kohn-Sham density functional theory (KS-DFT) is the most used method in computational catalysis because it is affordable and it gives results of reasonable accuracy in many instances. Furthermore, it can be employed in a …


Mass-Analyzed Threshold Ionization Of Lanthanide Imide Lnnh (Ln = La And Ce) Radicals From N–H Bond Activation Of Ammonia, Yuchen Zhang, Silver Nyambo, Dong-Sheng Yang Dec 2018

Mass-Analyzed Threshold Ionization Of Lanthanide Imide Lnnh (Ln = La And Ce) Radicals From N–H Bond Activation Of Ammonia, Yuchen Zhang, Silver Nyambo, Dong-Sheng Yang

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Ln (Ln = La and Ce) atom reactions with ammonia are carried out in a pulsed laser vaporization supersonic molecular beam source. Lanthanide-containing species are observed with time-of-flight mass spectrometry, and LnNH molecules are characterized by mass-analyzed threshold ionization (MATI) spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations. The theoretical calculations include density functional theory for both Ln species and a scalar relativity correction, electron correlation, and spin-orbit coupling for the Ce species. The MATI spectrum of LaNH exhibits a single vibronic band system with a strong origin band and two weak vibronic progressions, whereas the spectrum of CeNH displays two band systems …


Mc-Pdft Can Calculate Singlet-Triplet Splittings Of Organic Diradicals., Samuel J. Stoneburner, Donald G. Truhlar, Laura Gagliardi Jan 2018

Mc-Pdft Can Calculate Singlet-Triplet Splittings Of Organic Diradicals., Samuel J. Stoneburner, Donald G. Truhlar, Laura Gagliardi

Educator Scholarship

The singlet-triplet splittings of a set of diradical organic molecules are calculated using multiconfiguration pair-density functional theory (MC-PDFT) and the results are compared with those obtained by Kohn-Sham density functional theory (KS-DFT) and complete active space second-order perturbation theory (CASPT2) calculations. We found that MC-PDFT, even with small and systematically defined active spaces, is competitive in accuracy with CASPT2, and it yields results with greater accuracy and precision than Kohn-Sham DFT with the same parent functional. MC-PDFT also avoids the challenges associated with spin contamination in KS-DFT. It is also shown that MC-PDFT is much less computationally expensive than CASPT2 …


Investigating The Properties Of Superfluid He-4 Through Density Functional Calculations, Matthew Francis Dutra May 2017

Investigating The Properties Of Superfluid He-4 Through Density Functional Calculations, Matthew Francis Dutra

Doctoral Dissertations

We present a study of isotopically pure He-4 systems evaluated using helium density functional theory (He-DFT) with the intent of better understanding their ground state structural and energetic properties, particularly within the scope of singularly-doped helium droplets. We self-consistently solve for the density profiles and chemical potentials for a wide range of pure helium droplet sizes (up to 9500 atoms) via an imaginary time propagation method, and fit the resultant energetic data to a power law formula to be able to extrapolate values for even larger droplets. Subsequent calculations on singularly-doped droplets within the same size range yield accurate binding …


Fractional Charge Methods For Correcting Approximate Kohn-Sham Potentials, Darya N. Komsa Aug 2016

Fractional Charge Methods For Correcting Approximate Kohn-Sham Potentials, Darya N. Komsa

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Kohn-Sham density functional theory relies on approximating the exchange-correlation energy functional or the corresponding potential. The behavior of the exchange-correlation potential as a function of position in a system can be used to detect and correct deficiencies of the parent functional. The too-fast decay of the potentials derived from common density functionals is a major problem, because it causes inaccurate Rydberg excitation energies and erroneous fractional charges in dissociating molecules. An efficient method to correct the shape of the exchange-correlation potential was proposed by Gaiduk et al. [A. P. Gaiduk, D. S. Firaha, and V. N. Staroverov, Phys. Rev. …


Obtaining Mixed Ionic/Electronic Conductivity In Perovskite Oxides In A Reducing Environment: A Computational Prediction For Doped Srtio3, S. Suthirakun, Salai Ammal, G. Xiao, Fanglin Chen, Kevin Huang, Hans-Conrad Zur Loye, Andreas Heyden May 2015

Obtaining Mixed Ionic/Electronic Conductivity In Perovskite Oxides In A Reducing Environment: A Computational Prediction For Doped Srtio3, S. Suthirakun, Salai Ammal, G. Xiao, Fanglin Chen, Kevin Huang, Hans-Conrad Zur Loye, Andreas Heyden

Salai C. Ammal

No abstract provided.


Chemical Interaction Of Nf3 With Si (Part Ii): Density Functional Calculation Studies, A. Endou, T. Little, A. Yamada, K. Teraishi, M. Kubo, Salai Ammal, A. Miyamoto, M. Kitajima, F. Ohuchi May 2015

Chemical Interaction Of Nf3 With Si (Part Ii): Density Functional Calculation Studies, A. Endou, T. Little, A. Yamada, K. Teraishi, M. Kubo, Salai Ammal, A. Miyamoto, M. Kitajima, F. Ohuchi

Salai C. Ammal

No abstract provided.


Theory Of Model Kohn-Sham Potentials And Its Applications, Alex P. Gaiduk Jan 2013

Theory Of Model Kohn-Sham Potentials And Its Applications, Alex P. Gaiduk

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of Kohn-Sham density functional theory is to develop increasingly accurate approximations to the exchange-correlation functional or to the corresponding potential. When one chooses to approximate the potential, the resulting model must be integrable, that is, a functional derivative of some density functional. Non-integrable potentials produce unphysical results such as energies that are not translationally or rotationally invariant. The thesis introduces methods for constructing integrable model potentials, developing properly invariant energy functionals from model potentials, and designing model potentials that yield accurate electronic excitation energies. Integrable potentials can be constructed using powerful analytic integrability conditions derived in this work. …


Organic Photovoltaics: A Charge Transfer Perspective In The Study Of Donor-Acceptor Systems, Marco Olguin Jan 2013

Organic Photovoltaics: A Charge Transfer Perspective In The Study Of Donor-Acceptor Systems, Marco Olguin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The present research involves the study of donor-acceptor (D/A) dyad complexes from a charge transfer energy perspective. The aim is to provide insight and predictive understanding into the charge transfer processes of the molecular-level components in donor-acceptor based organic solar cells using computational methods to describe photochemical processes at the quantum mechanical level within the Density Functional Theory (DFT) approximation. Predictive understanding is anchored in reproducing experimental results, wherein the present work a perturbative excited-state DFT method is described in detail and shown to give Charge Transfer (CT) energies in excellent agreement with benchmark experimental data. With an accurate excited …