You've given me an interesting direction to follow, thanks for the info!

Just for curiosity's sake, is the problem with the idea of 'adding a free 
electron pseudo' because it means a very different thing in QE code than 
'adding a particle to the simulation that acts like an electron'?

Kind regards,


Sent from Outlook<http://aka.ms/weboutlook>

________________________________
From: Lorenzo Paulatto <[email protected]>
Sent: 29 August 2024 11:27
To: Alex Kirkpatrick <[email protected]>; Quantum ESPRESSO users Forum 
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [QE-users] Pseudopotential to approximate a free electron?



On 29/08/2024 12:36, Alex Kirkpatrick wrote:
Thanks for the reply Lorenzo.

I'm very new to all this but my thought was that, to have some control over the 
distance between the 'electron' and the surface, I would need to include it as 
a discrete entity.


Hello, QE is a code based on plane waves, which means that you cannot choose 
where an electron goes. But I don't think you need to use an explicit electron 
for your task. Thank to the power of numerical simulation, you can plot/measure 
directly the magnitude of the Kohn-Sham potential, (which is identical to the 
Hartree electrostatic potential when you go in the vacuum).

The procedure is similar to the one explained in the workfunction example 
(PP/examples/WorkFct_example) which shows how to compute the average value of 
the electrostatic potential far away in the vacuum to estimate the energy 
required to pull an electron from the surface out to infinity.

Of course the procedure is not entirely self-consistent (i.e. pulling out the 
electron would change the potential) but for a metal it is very close, and if 
you really need to you can remove some amount of charge fro mthe surface using 
a positive value for tot_charge

hth


I would then be able to vary the distance and see how things change. Is this 
the wrong way to go about it?

Kind regards
Alex


Sent from Outlook<http://aka.ms/weboutlook>

________________________________
From: users 
<[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]>
 on behalf of Lorenzo Paulatto 
<[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: 29 August 2024 10:15
To: Quantum ESPRESSO users Forum 
<[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [QE-users] Pseudopotential to approximate a free electron?

You could, probably, but why not just use tot_charge=-1

Kind regards


On August 29, 2024 10:03:30 AM GMT+02:00, Alex Kirkpatrick 
<[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
Dear all,

Is it possible to create a pseudopotential file, or modify an existing one like 
hydrogen, to approximate placing a free electron in the simulation cell?
The end goal being to model its interaction with material surfaces in vacuum.

Best wishes,
Alex


Sent from Outlook<http://aka.ms/weboutlook>

--
Dr. Lorenzo Paulatto
IdR @ IMPMC - CNRS UMR 7590 & Sorbonne Université
phone: +33 (0)1 442 79822 / skype: paulatz
http://www.impmc.upmc.fr/~paulatto/ - https://anharmonic.github.io/
23-24/423 B115, 4 place Jussieu 75252 Paris CX 05
_______________________________________________
The Quantum ESPRESSO community stands by the Ukrainian
people and expresses its concerns about the devastating
effects that the Russian military offensive has on their
country and on the free and peaceful scientific, cultural,
and economic cooperation amongst peoples
_______________________________________________
Quantum ESPRESSO is supported by MaX (www.max-centre.eu)
users mailing list [email protected]
https://lists.quantum-espresso.org/mailman/listinfo/users

Reply via email to