This tutorial explains how to perform the convergence study with respect to the number of k-points and smearing width, and how to analyze the electronic structure, i.e., band structure and density of states.
Metallic systems have the Fermi surface, and to handle it, STATE uses the smearing technique with various smearing functions and the tetrahedron method. Furthermore, the number of k-points to sample the Brillouin zone can be critical for the accurate calculation of the metallic systems.
Here we present the convergence of the total energy with respect to the number of k-points with the Methefeesel-Paxton smearing (default) and tetrahedron methods. Use negative WIDTH (e.g. -0.02) to activate the Methefessel-Paxton smearing (with positive value, a parabolic function is used to treat the Fermi level and the entropic term is not taken into account).
0 0 0 0 0 0 : I_CTRL(1:6) (DUMMY) 4.00 8.00 1 1 1 : GMAX GMAXP NTYP NATM NATM2 221 2 : NUM_SPACE_GROUP TYPE 7.5967 7.5967 7.5967 90.0 90.0 90.0 : A B C ALPHA BETA GAMMA 06 06 06 1 1 1 : N1 N2 N3 M1 M2 M3 0 0 : NCORD, NINV 0.00 0.00 0.00 1 0 1 : CPS(1,1:3) IWEI IMDTYP ITYP 13 0.50 26.98 6 1 0.2 : IATOMN ALFA AMION ILOC IVAN 0 0 0 0 0 : ICOND INIPOS INIVEL ININOS INIACC 0 1 : IPRE IPRI 30 30 0 84200.00 0 : NMD1 NMD2 LAST_ITER CPUMAX IFSTOP 6 1 : WAY_MIX MIX_WHAT 0 20 0.60 : ITER_START KBXMIX MIX_ALPHA 0.20 0.30 0.20 0.20 0.20 : DTIM1 DTIM2 DTIM3 DTIM4 DTIM 300.00 4 1 0.50D-09 : DTIO IMDALG IEXPL EDELTA -0.002 0 0.50D+03 0 : WIDTH FORCCR ISTRESS ggapbe 1 : XCTYPE KSPIN 2.00 : DESTM 101 : NBZTYPE 4 4 4 : NKX NKY NKZ (DUMMY) 4 4 4 : NKX2 NKY2 NKZ2 (DUMMY) 6 : KEG 1 : NEXTST 0 : (DUMMY) 2 : IMSD 0 : EVALUATE_EKO_DIFF 0 : NPDOSAO 0 0.000 : SM_N DOPPING (DUMMY)
0 0 0 0 0 0 : I_CTRL(1:6) (DUMMY) 4.00 8.00 1 1 1 : GMAX GMAXP NTYP NATM NATM2 221 2 : NUM_SPACE_GROUP TYPE 7.5967 7.5967 7.5967 90.0 90.0 90.0 : A B C ALPHA BETA GAMMA 06 06 06 1 1 1 : N1 N2 N3 M1 M2 M3 0 0 : NCORD, NINV 0.00 0.00 0.00 1 0 1 : CPS(1,1:3) IWEI IMDTYP ITYP 13 0.50 26.98 6 1 0.2 : IATOMN ALFA AMION ILOC IVAN 0 0 0 0 0 : ICOND INIPOS INIVEL ININOS INIACC 0 1 : IPRE IPRI 30 30 0 84200.00 0 : NMD1 NMD2 LAST_ITER CPUMAX IFSTOP 6 1 : WAY_MIX MIX_WHAT 0 20 0.60 : ITER_START KBXMIX MIX_ALPHA 0.20 0.30 0.20 0.20 0.20 : DTIM1 DTIM2 DTIM3 DTIM4 DTIM 300.00 4 1 0.50D-09 : DTIO IMDALG IEXPL EDELTA -10.02 0 0.50D+03 0 : WIDTH FORCCR ISTRESS ggapbe 1 : XCTYPE KSPIN 2.00 : DESTM 101 : NBZTYPE 4 4 4 : NKX NKY NKZ (DUMMY) 4 4 4 : NKX2 NKY2 NKZ2 (DUMMY) 6 : KEG 1 : NEXTST 0 : (DUMMY) 2 : IMSD 0 : EVALUATE_EKO_DIFF 0 : NPDOSAO 0 0.000 : SM_N DOPPING (DUMMY)See the difference in WIDTH.
Total (free) energy of the metallic system is sensitive to the smearing width, in particular, with the Gaussian and Fermi-Dirac function. Here we demonstrate the smearing width dependence of the total energy, following the seminal work by de Gironcoli [Phys. Rev. B51, 6773(R) (1995)]. Smearing function can be chosen by adding the section &OTHERS ... &END at the end of the input file. To use the Fermi-Dirac distribution function set
&OTHERS FERMI_DIRAC &END
For the Gaussian smearing
&OTHERS GAUSSIAN &END
The cold smearing of Marzari and Vanderbilt is also avilable. Use
&OTHERS COLD &END