[gpaw-users] Transport calculation--atom "too close to boundary"

Alex Eftimiades alexeftimiades at gmail.com
Tue Oct 25 00:44:26 CEST 2011


Hello all,

It would seem making setting the system pbc to (0,0,1) did not make a  
difference, however I found that the reason it was not working was  
because the lead atoms were not centered within pl_cell
I have no idea how to fix this problem. Where is pl_cell usually  
centered about anyway?

Alex

On Oct 20, 2011, at 11:49 AM, jingzhe Chen wrote:

> Hi Alex,
>
>       You are right, leads are periodic while scattering region  
> not.  When u set pbc as (0,0,1),  lead calculation follow it,
> and the scattering region use (0, 0).  (It does not make sense you  
> have left lead is (0, 0, 1) and right lead is (1, 0 ,1), the
> pbc in x, y directions should be consistent for leads and scattering  
> region).   As for scattering region,the pbc in z
> direction has no physical meaning, because 0 means zero boundary, 1  
> for periodical, you only have these two options, and each of them is  
> not fit,  but 1 can bypass that error.  Anyway, it may be better to  
> fix it as 1 in the code.
>
>      Best.
>      Jingzhe
>
>
>
> 2011/10/18 Alex Eftimiades <alexeftimiades at gmail.com>
> That makes more sense, but even so, the system as a whole is not  
> periodic--even along the transport direction. Consider this example:
> (forgive the bad ACII drawing)
>
> [Pt]--[Pt]--[Pt]--[H]  [H]--[Na]--[Na]--[Na]
>
> Clearly the left lead is period along the transport direction, and  
> the right lead is periodic along the transport direction, but the  
> system as a whole is not. That is my only concern in setting the pbc  
> of the system periodic along any direction.
>
> Unless the code never applies this condition to the system as a  
> whole and only applies the setting to each lead--so if I set system  
> pbc to (0,0,1) I am really only setting the left and right lead unit  
> cells' pbc to (0,0,1). That would be fine, although it would raise  
> the question of dealing with a situation in which one of the leads  
> had a pbc of say (1,0,1) and you wanted the other lead to have a pbc  
> of (0,0,1).
>
> Thanks for the quick responses.
> Alex Eftimiades
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 1:14 PM, jingzhe Chen  
> <jingzhe.chen at gmail.com> wrote:
> At least you should set 1 for the transport direction,  if you have  
> enough vacuum space in the other two directions.
> It is not periodic, you are right, setting it True is just to bypass  
> the the raising error you reported. In the code,
> it is solved in fixed boundary condition.
>
>
> Best.
> Jingzhe
>
> 2011/10/18 Alex Eftimiades <alexeftimiades at gmail.com>
> My system's pbc was not (1,1,1). I did not know that was necessary.  
> Why does the entire system need to have a pbc of (1,1,1)? The leads  
> should be the only component with periodicity--and that should only  
> have to be applied along the direction of transport (namely, the z  
> axis.)
>
> Thanks,
> Alex
>
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 10:39 AM, jingzhe Chen  
> <jingzhe.chen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>        One possibility is that your system's pbc is not (1,1,1),  
> change to (1,1,1)
> and retry.
>
>        Best.
>        Jingzhe
>
>
>
> 2011/10/18 Alex Eftimiades <alexeftimiades at gmail.com>
> While doing a transport calculation with gpaw, I keep getting the  
> following error message:
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
>   File "/media/8051-29A1/nanotube_transport2.py", line 75, in <module>
>     t.calculate_iv()
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpaw/transport/ 
> calculator.py", line 2292, in calculate_iv
>     self.negf_prepare()
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpaw/transport/ 
> calculator.py", line 986, in negf_prepare
>     self.initialize_transport()
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpaw/transport/ 
> calculator.py", line 306, in initialize_transport
>     calc.set_positions(atoms)
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpaw/paw.py", line 301, in  
> set_positions
>     spos_ac = self.initialize_positions(atoms)
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpaw/paw.py", line 294, in  
> initialize_positions
>     self.density.set_positions(spos_ac, self.wfs.rank_a)
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpaw/density.py", line 104,  
> in set_positions
>     self.ghat.set_positions(spos_ac)
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpaw/lfc.py", line 260, in  
> set_positions
>     movement |= sphere.set_position(spos_c, self.gd, self.cut)
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpaw/lfc.py", line 89, in  
> set_position
>     for beg_c, end_c, sdisp_c in gd.get_boxes(spos_c, rcut, cut):
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpaw/grid_descriptor.py",  
> line 263, in get_boxes
>     (tuple(spos_c) + (beg_c, end_c)))
> RuntimeError: Atom at 0.736 0.949 0.750 too close to boundary (beg.  
> of box [ 88 117   6], end of box [113 142  31])
>
> I know this has to do with the augmentation sphere being out of  
> bounds--not the atom itself
> mentioned here https://listserv.fysik.dtu.dk/pipermail/gpaw-users/2010-July/000227.html
>
> I am only working with carbon nanotubes (carbon and hydrogen atoms)  
> so I am not using any heavy metals. I can of course avoid the error  
> by imposing periodic boundary conditions, but it is troubling that  
> no matter how big the box is (note the size mentioned in the error  
> message) this error still comes up.
>
> Does this suggest my basis set is not right (I just used dzp since  
> that seems to be the standard for most atoms)? What do I have to do  
> to fix this?
>
> Thank you,
> Alex Eftimiades
>
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