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Title: Excited-state electronic structure of molecules using many-body Green’s functions: Quasiparticles and electron–hole excitations with VOTCA-XTP

Journal Article · · Journal of Chemical Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5144277· OSTI ID:1630887
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [5];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Eindhoven Univ. of Technology (Netherlands)
  2. Eindhoven Univ. of Technology (Netherlands); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  3. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  4. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  5. Netherlands eScience Center, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

Here, we present the open-source VOTCA-XTP software for the calculation of the excited-state electronic structure of molecules using many-body Green’s function theory in the GW approximation with the Bethe–Salpeter equation (BSE). This work provides a summary of the underlying theory and discusses the details of its implementation based on Gaussian orbitals, including resolution-of-identity techniques and different approaches to the frequency integration of the self-energy or acceleration by offloading compute-intensive matrix operations using graphics processing units in a hybrid OpenMP/Cuda scheme. A distinctive feature of VOTCA–XTP is the capability to couple the calculation of electronic excitations to a classical polarizable environment on an atomistic level in a coupled quantum- and molecular-mechanics (QM/MM) scheme, where a complex morphology can be imported from Molecular Dynamics simulations. The capabilities and limitations of the GW–BSE implementation are illustrated with two examples. First, we study the dependence of optically active electron–hole excitations in a series of diketopyrrolopyrrole-based oligomers on molecular-architecture modifications and the number of repeat units. Second, we use the GW–BSE/MM setup to investigate the effect of polarization on localized and intermolecular charge-transfer excited states in morphologies of low-donor content rubrene–fullerene mixtures. These showcases demonstrate that our implementation currently allows us to treat systems with up to 2500 basis functions on regular shared-memory workstations, providing accurate descriptions of quasiparticle and coupled electron–hole excited states of various characters on an equal footing.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NW)
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001
OSTI ID:
1630887
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-20-20299; TRN: US2200714
Journal Information:
Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 152, Issue 11; ISSN 0021-9606
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 15 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (2)

A Kernel-based Machine Learning Approach to Computing Quasiparticle Energies within Many-Body Green's Functions Theory preprint January 2020
The Bethe–Salpeter Equation Formalism: From Physics to Chemistry journal August 2020