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We investigate the convergence of quasi-particle energies for periodic systems to the thermodynamic limit using increasingly large simulation cells corresponding to increasingly dense integration meshes in reciprocal space. The quasi-particle energies are computed at the level of equation-of-motion coupled-cluster theory for ionization (IP-EOM-CC) and electron attachment processes (EA-EOM-CC). By introducing an electronic correlation structure factor, the expected asymptotic convergence rates for systems with different dimensionality are formally derived. We rigorously test these derivations through numerical simulations for trans-Polyacetylene using IP/EA-EOM-CCSD and the G0W0@HF approximation, which confirm the predicted convergence behavior. Our findings provide a solid foundation for efficient schemes to correct finite-size errors in IP/EA-EOM-CCSD calculations., Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures

Starting from a single layer of NbS$_2$ grown on graphene by molecular beam epitaxy, the single unit cell thick 2D materials Nb$_{5/3}$S$_3$-2D and Nb$_2$S$_3$-2D are created using two different pathways. Either annealing under sulfur-deficient conditions at progressively higher temperatures or deposition of increasing amounts of Nb at elevated temperature result in phase-pure Nb$_{5/3}$S$_3$-2D followed by Nb$_2$S$_3$-2D. The materials are characterized by scanning tunneling microscopy, scanning tunneling spectroscopy and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy. The experimental assessment combined with systematic density functional theory calculations reveals their structure. The 2D materials are covalently bound without any van der Waals gap. Their stacking sequence and structure are at variance with expectations based on corresponding bulk materials highlighting the importance of surface and interface effects in structure formation.

Quantum mechanical many-electron calculations can predict properties of atoms, molecules and even complex materials. The employed computational methods play a quintessential role in many scientifically and technologically relevant research fields. However, a question of paramount importance is whether approximations aimed at reducing the computational complexity for solving the many-electron Schr\"odinger equation, are accurate enough. Here, we investigate recently reported discrepancies of noncovalent interaction energies for large molecules predicted by two of the most widely-trusted many-electron theories: diffusion quantum Monte Carlo and coupled-cluster theory. We are able to unequivocally pin down the source of the puzzling discrepancies and present modifications to widely-used coupled-cluster methods needed for more accurate noncovalent interaction energies of large molecules on the hundred-atom scale. This enhances the reliability of predictions from quantum mechanical many-electron theories across a wide range of critical applications, including drug design, catalysis, and the innovation of new functional materials, such as those for renewable energy technologies., Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables

We synthesize and spectroscopically investigate monolayer C$_{60}$ on the topological insulator (TI) Bi$_4$Te$_3$. This C$_{60}$/Bi$_4$Te$_3$ heterostructure is characterized by excellent translational order in a novel (4 x 4) C$_{60}$ superstructure on a (9 x 9) unit of Bi$_4$Te$_3$. We measure the full two-dimensional energy band structure of C$_{60}$/Bi$_4$Te$_3$ using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). We find that C$_{60}$ accepts electrons from the TI at room temperature but no charge transfer occurs at low temperatures. We unravel this peculiar behaviour by Raman spectroscopy of C$_{60}$/Bi$_4$Te$_3$ and density functional theory (DFT) calculations of the electronegativity of C$_{60}$. Both methods are sensitive to orientational order of C$_{60}$. At low temperatures, Raman spectroscopy shows a dramatic intensity increase of the C$_{60}$ Raman signal, evidencing a transition to a rotationally ordered state. DFT reveals that the orientational order of C$_{60}$ at low temperatures has a higher electron affinity than at high temperatures. These results neatly explain the temperature-dependent charge transfer observed in ARPES. Our conclusions are supported by the appearance of a strong photoluminescence from C$_{60}$/Bi$_4$Te$_3$ at low temperatures.

We investigate the convergence of coupled-cluster correlation energies and related quantities with respect to the employed basis set size for the uniform electron gas to gain a better understanding of the basis set incompleteness error. To this end, coupled-cluster doubles (CCD) theory is applied to the three dimensional uniform electron gas for a range of densities, basis set sizes and electron numbers. We present a detailed analysis of individual, diagrammatically decomposed contributions to the amplitudes at the level of CCD theory. In particular, we show that only two terms from the amplitude equations contribute to the asymptotic large-momentum behavior of the transition structure factor, corresponding to the cusp region at short interelectronic distances. However, due to the coupling present in the amplitude equations, all decomposed correlation energy contributions show the same asymptotic convergence behavior to the complete basis set limit. These findings provide an additional rationale for the success of a recently proposed correction to the basis set incompleteness error (BSIE) of coupled-cluster theory. Lastly, we examine the BSIE in the coupled-cluster doubles plus perturbative triples [CCD(T)] method, as well as in the newly proposed coupled-cluster doubles plus complete perturbative triples [CCD(cT)] method., Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, 1 table

Experimental setups for charge transport measurements are typically not compatible with the ultra-high vacuum conditions for chemical doping, limiting the charge carrier density that can be investigated by transport methods. Field-effect methods, including dielectric gating and ionic liquid gating, achieve too low a carrier density to induce electronic phase transitions. To bridge this gap, we developed an integrated flip-chip method to dope graphene by alkali vapour in the diffusive regime, suitable for charge transport measurements at ultra-high charge carrier density. We introduce a cesium droplet into a sealed cavity filled with inert gas to dope a monolayer graphene sample by the process of cesium atom diffusion, adsorption and ionization at the graphene surface, with doping beyond an electron density of $4.7\times10^{14}~\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$ monitored by operando Hall measurement. The sealed assembly is stable against oxidation, enabling measurement of charge transport versus temperature and magnetic field. Cyclotron mass inversion is observed via the Hall effect, indicative of the change of Fermi surface geometry associated with the Liftshitz transition at the hyperbolic $M$ point of monolayer graphene. The transparent quartz substrate also functions as an optical window, enabling non-resonant Raman scattering. Our findings show that chemical doping, hitherto restricted to ultra-high vacuum, can be applied in a diffusive regime at ambient pressure in an inert gas environment and thus enable charge transport studies in standard cryogenic environments

We present a robust strategy to numerically sample the Coulomb potential in reciprocal space for periodic Born-von Karman cells of general shape. Our approach tackles two common issues of plane-wave based implementations of Coulomb integrals under periodic boundary conditions, the treatment of the singularity at the Brillouin-zone center, as well as quadrature errors, which can cause severe convergence problems in anisotropic cells, necessary for the calculation of low-dimensional systems. We apply our strategy to the Hartree-Fock (HF) and coupled cluster (CC) theory and discuss the consequences of different sampling strategies on the different theories. We show that sampling the Coulomb potential via the widely used probe-charge Ewald method is unsuitable for CC calculations in anisotropic cells. To demonstrate the applicability of our developed approach, we study two representative, low-dimensional use cases: the infinite carbon chain, for which we report the first periodic CCSD(T) potential energy surface, as well as a surface slab of lithium hydride, for which we demonstrate the impact of different sampling strategies for calculating surface energies. We find that our Coulomb sampling strategy serves as a vital solution, addressing the critical need for improved accuracy in plane-wave based CC calculations for low-dimensional systems., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

We propose an algorithm that aims at minimizing the inter-node communication volume for distributed and memory-efficient tensor contraction schemes on modern multi-core compute nodes. The key idea is to define processor grids that optimize intra-/inter-node communication volume in the employed contraction algorithms. We present an implementation of the proposed node-aware communication algorithm into the Cyclops Tensor Framework (CTF). We demonstrate that this implementation achieves a significantly improved performance for matrix-matrix-multiplication and tensor-contractions on up to several hundreds modern compute nodes compared to conventional implementations without using node-aware processor grids. Our implementation shows good performance when compared with existing state-of-the-art parallel matrix multiplication libraries (COSMA and ScaLAPACK). In addition to the discussion of the performance for matrix-matrix-multiplication, we also investigate the performance of our node-aware communication algorithm for tensor contractions as they occur in quantum chemical coupled-cluster methods. To this end we employ a modified version of CTF in combination with a coupled-cluster code (Cc4s). Our findings show that the node-aware communication algorithm is also able to improve the performance of coupled-cluster theory calculations for real-world problems running on tens to hundreds of compute nodes., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures

We present a study of the self-interstitial point defect formation energies in silicon using a range of quantum chemical theories including the coupled cluster (CC) method within a periodic supercell approach. We study the formation energies of the X, T, H and C3V self-interstitials and the vacancy V. Our results are compared to findings obtained using different ab initio methods published in the literature and partly to experimental data. In order to achieve computational results that are converged with respect to system size and basis set, we employ the recently proposed finite size error corrections and basis set incompleteness error corrections. Our CCSD(T) calculations yield an order of stability of the X, H and T self-interstitials, which agrees both with quantum Monte Carlo results and with predictions obtained using the random-phase approximation as well as using screened hybrid functionals. Compared to quantum Monte Carlo results with backflow corrections, the CCSD(T) formation energies of X and H are only slightly larger by about 100 meV. However, in the case of the T self-interstitial, we find significant disagreement with all other theoretical predictions. Compared to quantum Monte Carlo calculations, CCSD(T) overestimates the formation energy of the T self-interstitial by 1.2 eV. Although this can partly be attributed to strong correlation effects, more accurate electronic structure theories are needed to understand these findings.

We implement the phaseless auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo method using the plane-wave based projector augmented wave method and explore the accuracy and the feasibility of applying our implementation to solids. We use a singular value decomposition to compress the two-body Hamiltonian and thus reduce the computational cost. Consistent correlation energies from the primitive-cell sampling and the corresponding supercell calculations numerically verify our implementation. We calculate the equation of state for diamond and the correlation energies for a range of prototypical solid materials. A down-sampling technique along with natural orbitals accelerates the convergence with respect to the number of orbitals and crystal momentum points. We illustrate the competitiveness of our implementation in accuracy and computational cost for dense crystal momentum point meshes comparing to a well-established quantum-chemistry approach, the coupled-cluster ansatz including singles, doubles and perturbative triple particle-hole excitation operators., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures

Coupled-cluster theories can be used to compute ab initio electronic correlation energies of real materials with systematically improvable accuracy. However, the widely-used coupled cluster singles and doubles plus perturbative triples (CCSD(T)) method is only applicable to insulating materials. For zero-gap materials the truncation of the underlying many-body perturbation expansion leads to an infrared catastrophe. Here, we present a novel perturbative triples formalism that yields convergent correlation energies in metallic systems. Furthermore, the computed correlation energies for the three dimensional uniform electron gas at metallic densities are in good agreement with quantum Monte Carlo results. At the same time the newly proposed method retains all desirable properties of CCSD(T) such as its accuracy for insulating systems as well as its low computational cost compared to a full inclusion of the triples. This paves the way for ab initio calculations of real metals with chemical accuracy., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, 1 table plus a supplemental material of 14 pages, 4 figures and 1 table

Coupled cluster (CC) theory is often considered the gold standard of quantum-chemistry. For solids, however, the available software is scarce. We present CC-aims, which can interface ab initio codes with localized atomic orbitals and the CC for solids (CC4S) code by the group of A. Gr\"uneis. CC4S features a continuously growing selection of wave function-based methods including perturbation and CC theory. The CC-aims interface was developed for the FHI-aims code (https://fhi-aims.org) but is implemented such that other codes may use it as a starting point for corresponding interfaces. As CC4S offers treatment of both molecular and periodic systems, the CC-aims interface is a valuable tool, where DFT is either too inaccurate or too unreliable, in theoretical chemistry and materials science alike., Comment: Currently reviewed for publication in the JOSS journal (review process: https://github.com/openjournals/joss-reviews/issues/4040 ). The conciseness of the paper is due to the required word count of less than 1000 words by the journal (see https://joss.readthedocs.io/en/latest/submitting.html#what-should-my-paper-contain ). This manuscript is complete and introduces a new piece of software

Voss and Clarke observed 1/f noise in the square of Johnson noise across samples in thermal equilibrium without applying a current. We refer to this phenomenon as thermal 1/f noise. Voss and Clarke suggested spatially correlated temperature fluctuations as an origin of thermal 1/f noise; they also showed that thermal 1/f noise closely matches the 1/f spectrum obtained by passing a current through the sample. An intermittent generation-recombination (g-r) process has recently been introduced to interpret 1/f noise in semiconductors. The square of this intermittent g-r process generates a 1/f noise component which correlates with Voss and Clarke's empirical findings. Traps which intermittently rather than continuously generate g-r pulses are suggested as the origin of 1/f noise under drift and thermal agitation. We see no need to introduce correlated temperature fluctuations or oxide traps with a large distribution of time constants to explain 1/f noise., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

We present a study of the two dimensional circular quantum dot model Hamiltonian using a range of quantum chemical ab initio methods. Ground and excited state energies are computed on different levels of perturbation theories including the coupled cluster method. We outline a scheme to compute the required Coulomb integrals in real space and utilize a semi-analytic solution to the integral over the Coulomb kernel in the vicinity of the singularity. Furthermore, we show that the remaining basis set incompleteness error for two dimensional quantum dots scales with the inverse number of virtual orbitals, allowing us to extrapolate to the complete basis set limit energy. By varying the harmonic potential parameter we tune the correlation strength and investigate the predicted ground and excited state energies.

Dirac line node (DLN) materials are topological semimetals wherein a set of symmetry protected crossing points forms a one-dimensional (1D) line in reciprocal space. Not only are the linearly dispersing bands expected to give rise to exceptional electronic properties, but the weak screening of the Coulomb interaction near the line node may enhance electronic correlations, produce new many-body ground states, or influence the quasiparticle lifetime. We investigate the quasiparticle dynamics in the DLN material ZrSiS via spectroscopic imaging scanning tunneling microscopy (SI-STM). By studying the spatial decay of quasiparticle interference patterns (QPI) from point scatterers, we were able to directly and selectively extract the phase coherence length $l_{\textrm{QPI}}$ and lifetime $\tau_{\textrm{QPI}}$ for the bulk DLN excitations, which are dominated by inelastic electron-electron scattering. We find that the experimental $\tau_{\textrm{QPI}}(E)$ values below $-$40 meV are very short, likely due to the stronger Coulomb interactions, and lie at the Planckian limit $\hbar/|E|$. Our results corroborate a growing body of experimental reports demonstrating unusual electronic correlation effects near a DLN.

A first-principles study of the adsorption of a single water molecule on a layer of graphitic carbon nitride employing an embedding approach is presented. The embedding approach involves an algorithm to obtain localized Wannier orbitals of various types expanded in a plane-wave basis and intrinsic atomic orbital projectors. The localized occupied orbitals are employed in combination with unoccupied natural orbitals to perform many-electron perturbation theory calculations of local fragments. The fragments are comprised of a set of localized orbitals close to the adsorbed water molecule. Although the surface model contains more than 100 atoms in the simulation cell, the employed fragments are small enough to allow for calculations using high-level theories up to the coupled cluster ansatz with single, double and perturbative triple particle-hole excitation operators (CCSD(T)). To correct for the missing long-range correlation energy contributions to the adsorption energy, we embed CCSD(T) theory into the direct random phase approximation, yielding rapidly convergent adsorption energies with respect to the fragment size. Convergence of computed binding energies with respect to the virtual orbital basis set is achieved employing a number of recently developed techniques. Moreover, we discuss fragment size convergence for a range of approximate many-electron perturbation theories. The obtained benchmark results are compared to a number of density functional calculations., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures

A lowest limit of 1/f noise in semiconductor materials has not yet been reported; we do not even know if such a lowest limit exists. 1/f noise in semiconductors has recently been brought into relation with 1/f noise in quantum dots and other materials. These materials exhibit on-off states which are power-law distributed over a wide range of timescales. We transfer such findings to semiconductors, assuming that the g-r process is also controlled by such on-off states. As a result, we obtain 1/f noise which can be expressed in the form of the Hooge relation. Based on the intermittent g-r process, we estimate the lowest limit of 1/f noise in semiconductor materials. We show that this limit is inversely proportional to the dopant concentration; to detect the lowest limit of 1/f noise, the number of centers should be as small as possible. We also find a smooth dependence of 1/f noise and g-r noise on time., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2108.07155

Single quantum dots and other materials exhibit irregular switching between on and off states; these on-off states follow power-law statistics giving rise to 1/f noise. We transfer this phenomenon (also referred to as on-off intermittency) to the generation and recombination (g-r) process in semiconductor materials. In addition to g-r noise we obtain 1/f noise that can be provided in the form of the Hooge relation. The predicted Hooge coefficient depends on the parameters of the g-r noise and on the parameters of the intermittency. Due to the power-law distribution of the on-times, the coefficient for intermittency shows a smooth dependence on time t. We also suggest an alternative form of the 1/f noise formula by Hooge relating the 1/f noise to the number of centers (such as donor or trap atoms) rather than to the number of charge carriers as defined by Hooge., Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures

Long linear carbon-chains have been attracting intense interest arising from the remarkable properties predicted and their potential applications in future nanotechnology. Here we comprehensively interrogate the excitonic transitions and the associated relaxation dynamics of nanotube confined long linear carbon-chains by using steady state and time-resolved Raman spectroscopies. The exciton relaxation dynamics on the confined carbon-chains occurs on a hundreds of picoseconds timescale, in strong contrast to the host dynamics that occurs on a few picosecond timescale. A prominent time-resolved Raman response is observed over a broad energy range extending from 1.2 to 2.8 eV, which includes the strong Raman resonance region around 2.2 eV. Evidence for a strong coupling between the chain and the nanotube host is found from the dynamics at high excitation energies which provides a clear evidence for an efficient energy transfer from the host carbon nanotube to the chain. Our experimental study presents the first unique characterization of the long linear carbon-chain exciton dynamics, providing indispensable knowledge for the understanding of the interactions between different carbon allotropes., Comment: 21 pages

The master-equation approach provides generation-recombination (g-r) noise in bulk semiconductors in terms of parameters of conduction electrons. It is shown that the g-r bulk noise can also be described by the random succession of elementary g-r pulses. This enables g-r bulk noise to be interpreted in terms of the numbers of traps. The transition from g-r bulk noise to discrete switching in small-area semiconductors is found by reducing the number of traps to just one single active trap. The resulting g-r noise spectrum is shown to be equivalent to Machlups noise spectrum. The probability of an overlap of succeeding g-r pulses is calculated. Such an overlap is attributed to the occupation of an empty single trap by an electron transferred from a neighboring trap. Simulating a g-r pulse train we find a large variety of patterns similar to those observed in MOSFETs. Excluding overlapping g-r pulses, the up and down distribution of succeeding g-r pulses is estimated., Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures and addendum

We present a basis set correction scheme for the coupled-cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) method. The scheme is based on employing frozen natural orbitals (FNOs) and diagrammatically decomposed contributions to the electronic correlation energy that dominate the basis set incompleteness error (BSIE). As recently discussed in [https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.156401], the BSIE of the CCSD correlation energy is dominated by the second-order M{\o}ller-Plesset (MP2) perturbation energy and the particle-particle ladder term. Here, we derive a simple approximation to the BSIE of the particle-particle ladder term that effectively corresponds to a rescaled pair-specific MP2 BSIE, where the scaling factor depends on the spatially averaged correlation hole depth of the coupled-cluster and first-order pair wavefunctions. The evaluation of the derived expressions is simple to implement in any existing code. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method for the uniform electron gas. Furthermore, we apply the method to coupled-cluster theory calculations of atoms and molecules using FNOs. Employing the proposed correction and an increasing number of FNOs per occupied orbital, we demonstrate for a test set that rapidly convergent closed and open-shell reaction energies, atomization energies, electron affinities, and ionization potentials can be obtained. Moreover, we show that a similarly excellent trade-off between required virtual orbital basis set size and remaining BSIEs can be achieved for the perturbative triples contribution to the CCSD(T) energy employing FNOs and the (T*) approximation.

Computationally efficient and accurate quantum mechanical approximations to solve the many-electron Schr\"odinger equation are at the heart of computational materials science. In that respect the coupled cluster hierarchy of methods plays a central role in molecular quantum chemistry because of its systematic improvability and computational efficiency. In this hierarchy, coupled cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) is one of the most important steps in moving towards chemical accuracy and, in recent years, its scope has successfully been expanded to the study of insulating surfaces and solids. Here, we show that CCSD theory can also be applied to real metals. In so doing, we overcome the limitation of needing extremely large supercells to capture long range electronic correlation effects. An effective Hamiltonian can be found using the transition structure factor--a map of electronic excitations from the Hartree--Fock wavefunction--which has fewer finite size effects than conventional periodic boundary conditions. This not only paves the way of applying coupled cluster methods to real metals but also reduces the computational cost by two orders of magnitude compared to previous methods. Our applications to phases of lithium and silicon show a resounding success in reaching the thermodynamic limit, taking the first step towards a truly universal quantum chemical treatment of solids., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

We present an embedding approach to treat local electron correlation effects in periodic environments. In a single, consistent framework, our plane-wave based scheme embeds a local high-level correlation calculation (here Coupled Cluster Theory, CC), employing localized orbitals, into a low-level correlation calculation (here the direct Random Phase Approximation, RPA). This choice allows for an accurate and effcient treatment of long-range dispersion effects. Accelerated convergence with respect to the local fragment size can be observed if the low-level and high-level long-range dispersion are quantitatively similar, as is the case for CC in RPA. To demonstrate the capabilities of the introduced embedding approach, we calculate adsorption energies of molecules on a surface and in a chabazite crystal cage, as well as the formation energy of a lattice impurity in a solid at the level of highly accurate many-electron perturbation theories. The absorption energy of a methane molecule in a zeolite chabazite, for instance, is converged with an error well below 20 meV at the CC level. As our largest periodic benchmark system, we apply our scheme to the adsorption of a water molecule on titania in a supercell containing more than 1000 electrons., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures

We study the structural and electronic properties of phase III of solid hydrogen using accurate many-electron theories and compare to state-of-the-art experimental findings. The atomic structures of phase III modelled by C2/c-24 crystals are fully optimized on the level of second-order perturbation theory, demonstrating that previously employed structures optimized on the level of approximate density functionals exhibit errors in the H$_2$ bond lengths that cause significant discrepancies in the computed quasi particle band gaps and vibrational frequencies compared to experiment. Using the newly optimized atomic structures, we study the band gap closure and change in vibrational frequencies as a function of pressure. Our findings are in good agreement with recent experimental observations and may prove useful in resolving long-standing discrepancies between experimental estimates of metallization pressures possibly caused by disagreeing pressure calibrations., Comment: MP2 forces' implementation and zero point renormalization on the bandgaps details are in supp.pdf

We present an implementation of equation of motion coupled-cluster singles and doubles (EOM-CCSD) theory using periodic boundary conditions and a plane wave basis set. Our implementation of EOM-CCSD theory is applied to study $F$-centers in alkaline earth oxides employing a periodic supercell approach. The convergence of calculated electronic excitation energies for neutral color centers in MgO, CaO and SrO crystals with respect to orbital basis set and system size is explored. We discuss extrapolation techniques that approximate excitation energies in the complete basis set limit and reduce finite size errors. Our findings demonstrate that EOM-CCSD theory can predict optical absorption energies of $F$-centers in good agreement with experiment. Furthermore, we discuss calculated emission energies corresponding to the decay from triplet to singlet states, responsible for the photoluminescence properties. Our findings are compared to experimental and theoretical results available in literature.

Identifying the atomic structure and properties of solid hydrogen under high pressures is a long-standing problem of high-pressure physics with far-reaching significance in planetary and materials science. Determining the pressure-temperature phase diagram of hydrogen is challenging for experiment and theory due to the extreme conditions and the required accuracy in the quantum mechanical treatment of the constituent electrons and nuclei, respectively. Here, we demonstrate explicitly that coupled cluster theory can serve as a computationally efficient theoretical tool to predict solid hydrogen phases with high accuracy. We present a first principles study of solid hydrogen phases at pressures ranging from 100 to 450 GPa. The computed static lattice enthalpies are compared to state-of-the-art diffusion Monte Carlo results and density functional theory calculations. Our coupled cluster theory results for the most stable phases including C2/c-24 and P21/c-24 are in good agreement with those obtained using diffusion Monte Carlo, with the exception of Cmca-4, which is predicted to be significantly less stable. We discuss the scope of the employed methods and how they can contribute as efficient and complementary theoretical tools to solve the long-standing puzzle of understanding solid hydrogen phases at high pressures., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

Modern electronic structure theories can predict and simulate a wealth of phenomena in surface science and solid-state physics. In order to allow for a direct comparison with experiment, such ab initio predictions have to be made in the thermodynamic limit, substantially increasing the computational cost of many-electron wave-function theories. Here, we present a method that achieves thermodynamic limit results for solids and surfaces using the "gold standard" coupled cluster ansatz of quantum chemistry with unprecedented efficiency. We study the energy difference between carbon diamond and graphite crystals, adsorption energies of water on h-BN, as well as the cohesive energy of the Ne solid, demonstrating the increased efficiency and accuracy of coupled cluster theory for solids and surfaces., Comment: 4 figures

In this tutorial-style review we discuss basic concepts of coupled cluster theory and recent developments that increase its computational efficiency for calculations of molecules, solids and materials in general. We will touch upon the connection between coupled cluster theory and the random-phase approximation that is widely used in the field of solid-state physics. We will discuss various approaches to improve the computational performance without compromising on accuracy. These approaches include large-scale parallel design as well as techniques that reduce the pre-factor of the computational complexity. A central part of this article discusses the convergence of calculated properties to the thermodynamic limit, which is of significant importance for reliable predictions of materials properties and constitutes an additional challenge compared to calculations of large molecules. We mention technical aspects of computer code implementations of periodic coupled cluster theories in different numerical frameworks of the one-electron orbital basis; the projector-augmented-wave formalism using a plane wave basis set and the numeric atom-centered-orbital (NAO) with resolution-of-identity. We will discuss results and the possible scope of these implementations and how they can help advance the current state of the art in electronic structure theory calculations of materials., Comment: 2 figures

A flat energy dispersion of electrons at the Fermi level of a material leads to instabilities in the electronic system and can drive phase transitions. Here we introduce a method to induce a flat band in two-dimensional (2D) materials. We show that the flat band can be achieved by sandwiching the 2D material by two cesium (Cs) layers. We apply this method to monolayer graphene and investigate the flat band by a combination of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiment and the calculation. Our work highlights that charge transfer, zone folding of graphene bands and the covalent bonding between C and Cs atoms are at the origin of the flat energy band formation. The presented approach is an alternative route for obtaining flat band materials to twisting bilayer graphene which yields thermodynamically stable flat band materials in large areas., Comment: 22 pages, 4 Figures

We apply scanning tunneling spectroscopy to determine the bandgaps of mono-, bi- and trilayer MoS$_2$ grown on a graphene single crystal on Ir(111). Besides the typical scanning tunneling spectroscopy at constant height, we employ two additional spectroscopic methods giving extra sensitivity and qualitative insight into the $k$-vector of the tunneling electrons. Employing this comprehensive set of spectroscopic methods in tandem, we deduce a bandgap of $2.53\pm0.08$ eV for the monolayer. This is close to the predicted values for freestanding MoS$_2$ and larger than is measured for MoS$_2$ on other substrates. Through precise analysis of the `comprehensive' tunneling spectroscopy we also identify critical point energies in the mono- and bilayer MoS$_2$ band structures. These compare well with their calculated freestanding equivalents, evidencing the graphene/Ir(111) substrate as an excellent environment upon which to study the many feted electronic phenomena of monolayer MoS$_2$ and similar materials. Additionally, this investigation serves to expand the fledgling field of the comprehensive tunneling spectroscopy technique itself., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, accepted

We present a diagrammatic decomposition of the transition pair correlation function for the uniform electron gas. We demonstrate explicitly that ring and ladder diagrams are dual counterparts that capture significant long- and short-ranged interelectronic correlation effects, respectively. Our findings help to guide the further development of approximate many-electron theories and reveal that the contribution of the ladder diagrams to the electronic correlation energy can be approximated in an effective manner using second-order perturbation theory. We employ the latter approximation to reduce the computational cost of coupled cluster theory calculations for insulators and semiconductors by two orders of magnitude without compromising accuracy., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 1 table

We investigate the basis-set convergence of electronic correlation energies calculated using coupled cluster theory and a recently proposed finite basis-set correction technique. The correction is applied to atomic and molecular systems and is based on a diagrammatically decomposed coupled cluster singles and doubles correlation energy. Only the second-order energy and the particle-particle ladder term are corrected for their basis-set incompleteness error. We present absolute correlation energies and results for a large benchmark set. Our findings indicate that basis set reductions by two cardinal numbers are possible for atomization energies, ionization potentials and electron affinities without compromising accuracy when compared to conventional CCSD calculations. In the case of reaction energies we find that reductions by one cardinal number are possible compared to conventional CCSD calculations. The employed technique can readily be applied to other many-electron theories without the need for three- or four-electron integrals., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, 6 tables

We present an ab-initio study of boron nitride as well as carbon allotropes. Their relative thermodynamic stabilities and structural phase transitions from low- to high-density phases are investigated. Pressure-temperature phase diagrams are calculated and compared to experimental findings. The calculations are performed using quantum chemical wavefunction based as well as density functional theories. Our findings reveal that predicted energy differences often depend significantly on the choice of the employed method. Comparison between calculated and experimental results allows for benchmarking the accuracy of various levels of theory. The produced results show that quantum chemical wavefunction based theories allow for achieving systematically improvable estimates. We find that on the level of coupled cluster theories the low- and high-density phases of boron nitride become thermodynamically degenerate at 0 K. This is in agreement with recent experimental findings, indicating that cubic boron nitride is not the thermodynamically stable allotrope at ambient conditions. Furthermore we employ the calculated results to assess transition probabilities from graphitic low-density to diamond-like high-density phases in an approximate manner. We conclude that the stacking order of the parent graphitic material is crucial for the possible formation of meta-stable wurtzite boron nitride and hexagonal carbon diamond also known as lonsdaleite.

Molecular adsorption on surfaces plays a central role in catalysis, corrosion, desalination, and many other processes of relevance to industry and the natural world. Few adsorption systems are more ubiquitous or of more widespread importance than those involving water and carbon, and for a molecular level understanding of such interfaces water monomer adsorption on graphene is a fundamental and representative system. This system is particularly interesting as it calls for an accurate treatment of electron correlation effects, as well as posing a practical challenge to experiments. Here, we employ many-body electronic structure methodologies that can be rigorously converged and thus provide faithful references for the molecule-surface interaction. In particular, we use diffusion Monte-Carlo (DMC), coupled cluster (CCSD(T)), as well as the random phase approximation (RPA) to calculate the strength of the interaction between water and an extended graphene surface. We establish excellent, sub-chemical, agreement between the complementary high-level methodologies, and an adsorption energy estimate in the most stable configuration of approximately -100\,meV is obtained. We also find that the adsorption energy is rather insensitive to the orientation of the water molecule on the surface, despite different binding motifs involving qualitatively different interfacial charge reorganisation. In producing the first demonstrably accurate adsorption energies for water on graphene this work also resolves discrepancies amongst previously reported values for this widely studied system. It also paves the way for more accurate and reliable studies of liquid water at carbon interfaces with cheaper computational methods, such as density functional theory and classical potentials.

We report on the observation of photoluminescence (PL) with a narrow 18 meV peak width from molecular beam epitaxy grown MoS$_2$ on graphene/Ir(111). This observation is explained in terms of a weak graphene-MoS$_2$ interaction that prevents PL quenching expected for a metallic substrate. The weak interaction of MoS$_2$ with the graphene is highlighted by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and temperature dependent Raman spectroscopy. These methods reveal that there is no hybridization between electronic states of graphene and MoS$_2$ and a different thermal expansion of graphene and MoS$_2$. Molecular beam epitaxy grown MoS2 on graphene is therefore an important platform for optoelectronics which allows for large area growth with controlled properties., Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, submitted for review

We report on a many-electron wavefunction theory study for the reaction energetics of hydrogen dissociation on the Si(100) surface. We demonstrate that quantum chemical wavefunction based methods using periodic boundary conditions can predict chemically accurate results for the activation barrier and the chemisorption energy in agreement with experimental findings. These highly accurate results for the reaction energetics enable a deeper understanding of the underlying physical mechanism and make it possible to benchmark widely used density functional theory methods.

The phase diagrams of correlated systems like cuprates or pnictides high-temperature superconductors are characterized by a topological change of the Fermi surface under continuous variation of an external parameter, the so-called Lifshitz transition. However, the large number of low-temperature instabilities and the interplay of multiple energy scales complicate the study of this phenomenon. Here we first identify the optical signatures of a pressure-induced Lifshitz transition in a clean elemental system, black phosphorus. By applying external pressures above 1.5 GPa, we observe a change in the pressure dependence of the Drude plasma frequency due to the appearance of massless Dirac fermions. At higher pressures, optical signatures of two structural phase transitions are also identified. Our findings suggest that a key fingerprint of the Lifshitz transition in solid state systems, and in absence of structural phase transitions, is a discontinuity of the Drude plasma frequency due to the change of Fermi surface topology.

We report on the experimental demonstration and electrical characterization of N = 7 armchair graphene nanoribbon (7-AGNR) field effect transistors. The back-gated transistors are fabricated from atomically precise and highly aligned 7-AGNRs, synthesized with a bottom-up approach. The large area transfer process holds the promise of scalable device fabrication with atomically precise nanoribbons. The channels of the FETs are approximately 30 times longer than the average nanoribbon length of 30 nm to 40 nm. The density of the GNRs is high, so that transport can be assumed well-above the percolation threshold. The long channel transistors exhibit a maximum I$_{ON}$/I$_{OFF}$ current ratio of 87.5., Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures

Stannous selenide is a layered semiconductor that is a polar analogue of black phosphorus, and of great interest as a thermoelectric material. Unusually, hole doped SnSe supports a large Seebeck coefficient at high conductivity, which has not been explained to date. Angle resolved photo-emission spectroscopy, optical reflection spectroscopy and magnetotransport measurements reveal a multiple-valley valence band structure and a quasi two-dimensional dispersion, realizing a Hicks-Dresselhaus thermoelectric contributing to the high Seebeck coefficient at high carrier density. We further demonstrate that the hole accumulation layer in exfoliated SnSe transistors exhibits a field effect mobility of up to $250~\mathrm{cm^2/Vs}$ at $T=1.3~\mathrm{K}$. SnSe is thus found to be a high quality, quasi two-dimensional semiconductor ideal for thermoelectric applications., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, plus supporting information

We couple photoluminescent semiconducting 7-atom wide armchair edge graphene nanoribbons to plasmonic nanoantenna arrays and demonstrate an enhancement of the photoluminescence and Raman scattering intensity of the nanoribbons by more than one order of magnitude. The increase in signal allows us to study Raman spectra with high signal-to-noise ratio. Using plasmonic enhancement we are able to detect the off-resonant Raman signals from the modified radial breathing-like mode (RBLM) due to physisorbed molecules, the 3rd order RBLM, and C-H vibrations. We find excellent agreement between data and simulations describing the spectral dependence of the enhancement and modifications of the polarization anisotropy. The strong field gradients in the optical near-field further allow us to probe the subwavelength coherence properties of the phonon modes in the nanoribbons. We theoretically model this considering a finite coherence length along the GNR direction. Our results allow estimating the coherence length in graphene nanoribbons.

In this work, we present a model of the surface states of nonsymmorphic semimetals. These are derived from surface mass terms that lift the high degeneracy imposed in the band structure by the nonsymmorphic bulk symmetries. Reflecting the reduced symmetry at the surface, the bulk bands are strongly modified. This leads to the creation of two-dimensional floating bands, which are distinct from Shockley states, quantum well states or topologically protected surface states. We focus on the layered semimetal ZrSiS to clarify the origin of its surface states. We demonstrate an excellent agreement between DFT calculations and ARPES measurements and present an effective four-band model in which similar surface bands appear. Finally, we emphasize the role of the surface chemical potential by comparing the surface density of states in samples with and without potassium coating. Our findings can be extended to related compounds and generalized to other crystals with nonsymmorphic symmetries., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures

Molecular adsorption on surfaces plays an important part in catalysis, corrosion, desalination, and various other processes that are relevant to industry and in nature. As a complement to experiments, accurate adsorption energies can be obtained using various sophisticated electronic structure methods that can now be applied to periodic systems. The adsorption energy of water on boron nitride substrates, going from zero to 2-dimensional periodicity, is particularly interesting as it calls for an accurate treatment of polarizable electrostatics and dispersion interactions, as well as posing a practical challenge to experiments and electronic structure methods. Here, we present reference adsorption energies, static polarizabilities, and dynamic polarizabilities, for water on BN substrates of varying size and dimension. Adsorption energies are computed with coupled cluster theory, fixed-node quantum Monte Carlo (FNQMC), the random phase approximation (RPA), and second order M{\o}ller-Plesset (MP2) theory. These explicitly correlated methods are found to agree in molecular as well as periodic systems. The best estimate of the water/h-BN adsorption energy is $-107\pm7$ meV from FNQMC. In addition, the water adsorption energy on the BN substrates could be expected to grow monotonically with the size of the substrate due to increased dispersion interactions but interestingly, this is not the case here. This peculiar finding is explained using the static polarizabilities and molecular dispersion coefficients of the systems, as computed from time-dependent density functional theory (DFT). Dynamic as well as static polarizabilities are found to be highly anisotropic in these systems. In addition, the many-body dispersion method in DFT emerges as a particularly useful estimation of finite size effects for other expensive, many-body wavefunction based methods.

We present a comprehensive benchmark study of the adsorption energy of a single water molecule on the (001) LiH surface using periodic coupled cluster and quantum Monte Carlo theories. We benchmark and compare different implementations of quantum chemical wave function based theories in order to verify the reliability of the predicted adsorption energies and the employed approximations. Furthermore we compare the predicted adsorption energies to those obtained employing widely-used van der Waals density-functionals. Our findings show that quantum chemical approaches are becoming a robust and reliable tool for condensed phase electronic structure calculations, providing an additional tool that can also help in potentially improving currently available van der Waals density-functionals.

In recent years, solid-state spin systems have emerged as promising candidates for quantum information processing (QIP). Prominent examples are the Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) center in diamond, phosphorous dopants in silicon (Si:P), rare-earth ions in solids and V$_{\text{Si}}$-centers in Silicon-carbide (SiC). The Si:P system has demonstrated, that by eliminating the electron spin of the dopant, its nuclear spins can yield exceedingly long spin coherence times. For NV centers, however, a proper charge state for storage of nuclear spin qubit coherence has not been identified yet. Here, we identify and characterize the positively charged NV center as an electron-spin-less and optically inactive state by utilizing the nuclear spin qubit as a probe. We control the electronic charge and spin utilizing nanometer scale gate electrodes. We achieve a lengthening of the nuclear spin coherence times by a factor of 20. Surprisingly, the new charge state allows switching the optical response of single nodes facilitating full individual addressability., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

We study the decomposition of the Coulomb integrals of periodic systems into a tensor contraction of six matrices of which only two are distinct. We find that the Coulomb integrals can be well approximated in this form already with small matrices compared to the number of real space grid points. The cost of computing the matrices scales as O(N^4) using a regularized form of the alternating least squares algorithm. The studied factorization of the Coulomb integrals can be exploited to reduce the scaling of the computational cost of expensive tensor contractions appearing in the amplitude equations of coupled cluster methods with respect to system size. We apply the developed methodologies to calculate the adsorption energy of a single water molecule on a hexagonal boron nitride monolayer in a plane wave basis set and periodic boundary conditions.

Electronically driven nematic order is often considered as an essential ingredient of high-temperature superconductivity. Its elusive nature in iron-based supercon- ductors resulted in a controversy not only as regards its origin but also as to the degree of its influence on the electronic structure even in the simplest representative material FeSe. Here we utilized angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations to study the influence of the nematic order on the electronic structure of FeSe and determine its exact energy and momentum scales. Our results strongly suggest that the nematicity in FeSe is electronically driven, we resolve the recent controversy and provide the necessary quantitative experimental basis for a successful theory of superconductivity in iron-based materials which takes into account both, spin-orbit interaction and electronic nematicity., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures

The random phase approximation (RPA) systematically overestimates the magnitude of the correlation energy and generally underestimates cohesive energies. This originates in part from the complete lack of exchange terms, which would otherwise cancel Pauli exclusion principle violating (EPV) contributions. The uncanceled EPV contributions also manifest themselves in form of an unphysical negative pair density of spin-parallel electrons close to electron-electron coalescence. We follow considerations of many-body perturbation theory to propose an exchange correction that corrects the largest set of EPV contributions while having the lowest possible computational complexity. The proposed method exchanges adjacent particle/hole pairs in the RPA diagrams, considerably improving the pair density of spin-parallel electrons close to coalescence in the uniform electron gas (UEG). The accuracy of the correlation energy is comparable to other variants of Second Order Screened Exchange (SOSEX) corrections although it is slightly more accurate for the spin-polarized UEG. Its computational complexity scales as $\mathcal O(N^5)$ or $\mathcal O(N^4)$ in orbital space or real space, respectively. Its memory requirement scales as $\mathcal O(N^2)$.

We present a simple, robust and black-box approach to the implementation and use of local, periodic, atom-centered Gaussian basis functions within a plane wave code, in a computationally efficient manner. The procedure outlined is based on the representation of the Gaussians within a finite bandwidth by their underlying plane wave coefficients. The core region is handled within the projected augment wave framework, by pseudizing the Gaussian functions within a cut-off radius around each nucleus, smoothing the functions so that they are faithfully represented by a plane wave basis with only moderate kinetic energy cutoff. To mitigate the effects of the basis set superposition error and incompleteness at the mean-field level introduced by the Gaussian basis, we also propose a hybrid approach, whereby the complete occupied space is first converged within a large plane wave basis, and the Gaussian basis used to construct a complementary virtual space for the application of correlated methods. We demonstrate that these pseudized Gaussians yield compact and systematically improvable spaces with an accuracy comparable to their non-pseudized Gaussian counterparts. A key advantage of the described method is its ability to efficiently capture and describe electronic correlation effects of weakly bound and low-dimensional systems, where plane waves are not sufficiently compact or able to be truncated without unphysical artefacts. We investigate the accuracy of the pseudized Gaussians for the water dimer interaction, neon solid and water adsorption on a LiH surface, at the level of second-order M\{o}ller--Plesset perturbation theory.

We investigate the accuracy of a number of wavefunction based methods at the heart of quantum chemistry for metallic systems. Using Hartree-Fock as a reference, perturbative (M{\o}ller-Plesset, MP) and coupled cluster (CC) theories are used to study the uniform electron gas model. Our findings suggest that non-perturbative coupled cluster theories are acceptable for modelling electronic interactions in metals whilst perturbative coupled cluster theories are not. Using screened interactions, we propose a simple modification to the widely-used coupled-cluster singles and doubles plus perturbative triples method (CCSD(T)) that lifts the divergent behaviour and is shown to give very accurate correlation energies for the homogeneous electron gas., Comment: Comments welcome. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1208.6103

We present an investigation into the use of an explicitly correlated plane wave basis for periodic wavefunction expansions at the level of second-order M{\o}ller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2). The convergence of the electronic correlation energy with respect to the one-electron basis set is investigated and compared to conventional MP2 theory in a finite homogeneous electron gas model. In addition to the widely used Slater-type geminal correlation factor, we also derive and investigate a novel correlation factor that we term Yukawa-Coulomb. The Yukawa-Coulomb correlation factor is motivated by analytic results for two electrons in a box and allows for a further improved convergence of the correlation energies with respect to the employed basis set. We find the combination of the infinitely delocalized plane waves and local short-ranged geminals provides a complementary, and rapidly convergent basis for the description of periodic wavefunctions. We hope that this approach will expand the scope of discrete wavefunction expansions in periodic systems., Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures