0000000000816397

AUTHOR

Carlo Andrea Rozzi

Octopus, a computational framework for exploring light-driven phenomena and quantum dynamics in extended and finite systems

Over the last few years, extraordinary advances in experimental and theoretical tools have allowed us to monitor and control matter at short time and atomic scales with a high degree of precision. An appealing and challenging route toward engineering materials with tailored properties is to find ways to design or selectively manipulate materials, especially at the quantum level. To this end, having a state-of-the-art ab initio computer simulation tool that enables a reliable and accurate simulation of light-induced changes in the physical and chemical properties of complex systems is of utmost importance. The first principles real-space-based Octopus project was born with that idea in mind,…

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Electron-electron interactions in artificial graphene

Recent advances in the creation and modulation of graphenelike systems are introducing a science of ``designer Dirac materials''. In its original definition, artificial graphene is a man-made nanostructure that consists of identical potential wells (quantum dots) arranged in an adjustable honeycomb lattice in the two-dimensional electron gas. As our ability to control the quality of artificial graphene samples improves, so grows the need for an accurate theory of its electronic properties, including the effects of electron-electron interactions. Here we determine those effects on the band structure and on the emergence of Dirac points.

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Exact Coulomb cutoff technique for supercell calculations in two dimensions

We present a reciprocal space technique for the calculation of the Coulomb integral in two dimensions in systems with reduced periodicity, i.e., finite systems, or systems that are periodic only in one dimension. The technique consists in cutting off the long-range part of the interaction by modifying the expression for the Coulomb operator in reciprocal space. The physical result amounts in an effective screening of the spurious interactions originated by the presence of ghost periodic replicas of the system. This work extends a previous report [C. A. Rozzi et al., Phys. Rev. B 73, 205119 (2006)], where three-dimensional systems were considered. We show that the use of the cutoffs dramatic…

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