Coulomb interactions between dipolar quantum fluctuations in van der Waals bound molecules and materials

in Nature Communications (2021), 12(1), 137

Mutual Coulomb interactions between electrons lead to a plethora of interesting physical and chemical effects, especially if those interactions involve many fluctuating electrons over large spatial scales ... [more ▼]

Mutual Coulomb interactions between electrons lead to a plethora of interesting physical and chemical effects, especially if those interactions involve many fluctuating electrons over large spatial scales. Here, we identify and study in detail the Coulomb interaction between dipolar quantum fluctuations in the context of van der Waals complexes and materials. Up to now, the interaction arising from the modification of the electron density due to quantum van der Waals interactions was considered to be vanishingly small. We demonstrate that in supramolecular systems and for molecules embedded in nanostructures, such contributions can amount to up to 6 kJ/mol and can even lead to qualitative changes in the long-range van der Waals interaction. Taking into account these broad implications, we advocate for the systematic assessment of so-called Dipole-Correlated Coulomb Singles in large molecular systems and discuss their relevance for explaining several recent puzzling experimental observations of collective behavior in nanostructured materials. [less ▲]

Improved description of ligand polarization enhances transferability of ion–ligand interactions

in Journal of Chemical Physics (2020)

Nonlocal electronic correlations in the cohesive properties of high-pressure hydrogen solids

in Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (2020)

From quantum to continuum mechanics in the delamination of atomically-thin layers from substrates

in Nature Communications (2020)

Density Functional Model for van der Waals Interactions: Unifying Many-Body Atomic Approaches with Nonlocal Functionals

in Physical Review Letters (2020)

DFTB+, a software package for efficient approximate density functional theory based atomistic simulations

in The Journal of Chemical Physics (2020), 152(12), 124101

DFTB+ is a versatile community developed open source software package offering fast and efficient methods for carrying out atomistic quantum mechanical simulations. By implementing various methods ... [more ▼]

DFTB+ is a versatile community developed open source software package offering fast and efficient methods for carrying out atomistic quantum mechanical simulations. By implementing various methods approximating density functional theory (DFT), such as the density functional based tight binding (DFTB) and the extended tight binding method, it enables simulations of large systems and long timescales with reasonable accuracy while being considerably faster for typical simulations than the respective ab initio methods. Based on the DFTB framework, it additionally offers approximated versions of various DFT extensions including hybrid functionals, time dependent formalism for treating excited systems, electron transport using non-equilibrium Green’s functions, and many more. DFTB+ can be used as a user-friendly standalone application in addition to being embedded into other software packages as a library or acting as a calculation-server accessed by socket communication. We give an overview of the recently developed capabilities of the DFTB+ code, demonstrating with a few use case examples, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the various features, and also discuss on-going developments and possible future perspectives. [less ▲]

Machine learning for molecular simulation

in Annual Review of Physical Chemistry (2020)

Density Functional Model for van der Waals Interactions: Unifying Many-Body Atomic Approaches with Nonlocal Functionals

in Physical Review Letters (2020)

van der Waals interactions in material modelling

in Handbook of Materials Modeling: Methods: Theory and Modeling (2020)

Quantum mechanics of proteins in explicit water: The role of plasmon-like solute-solvent interactions

in Science Advances (2019), 5(12), 0024

Quantum-mechanical van der Waals dispersion interactions play an essential role in intraprotein and protein-water interactions—the two main factors affecting the structure and dynamics of proteins in ... [more ▼]

Quantum-mechanical van der Waals dispersion interactions play an essential role in intraprotein and protein-water interactions—the two main factors affecting the structure and dynamics of proteins in water. Typically, these interactions are only treated phenomenologically, via pairwise potential terms in classical force fields. Here, we use an explicit quantum-mechanical approach of density-functional tight-binding combined with the many-body dispersion formalism and demonstrate the relevance of many-body van der Waals forces both to protein energetics and to protein-water interactions. In contrast to commonly used pairwise approaches, many-body effects substantially decrease the relative stability of native states in the absence of water. Upon solvation, the protein-water dispersion interaction counteracts this effect and stabilizes native conformations and transition states. These observations arise from the highly delocalized and collective character of the interactions, suggesting a remarkable persistence of electron correlation through aqueous environments and providing the basis for long-range interaction mechanisms in biomolecular systems. [less ▲]