# Integration of Atomic Charges and Volumes with Grids

In this example, we examine how to compute Bader atomic charges and atomic volumes in periodic solids using different quantum chemistry software that uses plane-waves/pseudopotentials approach. For the integration, we will use the Yu-Trinkle method (YT keyword) but the same can be done with Henkelman et al.’s method (BADER keyword).

As example, we will use the urea crystal. When it crystallizes, urea forms an orthorhombic molecular crystal with 16 atoms in the unit cell (2 molecules), shown on the right. There are chains of double hydrogen bonds all along the c axis, and all molecules in the crystal are equivalent by symmetry.

The input files necessary for this example can be generated from critic2’s internal library of structures. For instance, to create a Quantum ESPRESSO input, we do:

crystal library urea
write urea.scf.in


This generates an input file template. The particular keywords this template has are most likely not what you want, but the structure, which is after all the difficult part to write, is correct. Likewise, we can generate inputs for VASP or abinit with:

crystal library urea
write POSCAR
write urea.abin


Output formats for many other programs are supported as well.

## Quantum ESPRESSO

### How it Works

Quantum ESPRESSO does DFT calculations in periodic solids using plane waves and pseudopotentials. A typical calculation of the atomic charges has two steps. In the first step, you carry out the SCF calculation with the pw.x program on a .scf.in input file, such as the one generated in the example above. This generates the converged wavefunction, which is stored in QE’s internal format.

To extract the densities you use the pp.x (post-process) program to ask QE to write the density on a three-dimensional grid. This is not an arbitrary choice of representation for the density: In a plane-waves code the density and wavefunctions are expressed naturally on uniform three-dimensional grids. pp.x generates two types of file formats for the 3d density grid: Gaussian cube files (.cube) and xcrysden’s .xsf files. We will use the former, but critic2 can also understand and use .xsf files. Note that both cube and xsf files contain also the structural information, so you can use them to read the crystal structure into critic2 as well as the density at any time.

There are several ways of calculating the atomic charges, depending on the type of pseudopotential you use. Plane-wave/pseudopotentials codes use pseudopotentials for two reasons: 1) remove the core electrons and 2) smooth out the system’s wavefunctions close to the atoms, in order to prevent having to use an extremely large number of plane waves to represent the oscillations close to the atomic nuclei. Because of this the density peaks close to the nuclei are not as high as they should be and, in systems with significant charge transfer, the maxima at the nuclei may be missing altogether. Therefore, the electron smoothed density used in QE (the pseudo-density) cannot be used to calculate the QTAIM atomic basins, and we must have a way to recover the all-electron density from the calculation. Depending on the method and pseudopotential employed, this may be easy or hard.

Ideally, you want to use the PAW method because the information about the conversion to the all-electron wavefunctions is not lost, and therefore you keep the option of reconstructing the all-electron density. In recent versions of QE, this option is given by the plot_num=21 option in pp.x. Here is an example input for pp.x that writes the reconstructed all-electron density to a cube file (rhoae.cube):

&inputpp
prefix='urea',
outdir='.',
plot_num=21,
/
&plot
iflag=3,
output_format=6,
fileout='rhoae.cube',
/


If your version of QE is not very recent, then plot_num=21 may not be available to you. In that case, you can still get the all-electron valence density with plot_num=17, and then augment this density with the core contribution calculated using critic2’s internal density tables (see below).

The all-electron density is too steep close to the nuclei to be efficiently represented by a grid and, consequently, it does not sum to the correct number of electrons. Therefore, even though it gives the correct atomic basins, integrating the all-electron density to obtain the atomic charges is a poor idea. Instead, we integrate the pseudo-density, which is the density actually used in the SCF calculation and it is normalized to the number of valence electrons. To obtain the pseudo-density from pp.x, you use the same input as above but with plot_num=0. In the case of a non-PAW calculation, using either norm-conserving or ultrasoft pseudopotentials, plot_num=0 will be the only option available to you and, in that case, the pseudo-density is used to calculate the shape of the atomic basins as well. Although not ideal, experience has shown that the calculated atomic charges are about the same as with the correct all-electron density, provided core augmentation is utilized.

To summarize, to calculate atomic volumes and charges you do:

### PAW calculation

If you ran a PAW calculation, get the all-electron density (plot_num=21, rhoae.cube) and the pseudo-density (plot_num=0, rho.cube) and integrate the latter in the basins of the former with:

crystal rhoae.cube
integrable 2
yt


The basins are given by the reference field (rhoae.cube, the first field loaded) and we define the second field (rho.cube) as the integrand. The YT keyword launches the calculation of atomic properties.

### PAW calculation (old QE version)

If you ran a PAW calculation but your QE version is old and you do not have plot_num=21, then write the reconstructed valence density (plot_num=17, rhoval.cube) and the pseudo-density (plot_num=0, rho.cube) and integrate the latter in the basins of the former, but using core augmentation to account for the missing core electrons:

crystal rhoval.cube
load rhoval.cube core zpsp c 4 o 6 n 5 h 1
integrable 2
yt


Core augmentation is activated with the CORE option to LOAD, and we need to give to critic2 the pseudopotential charges for each atom. This value is equal to the atomic number minus the number of core electrons removed in the calculation. In QE, this value can be obtained by summing the numbers in the occ column under Valence configuration in the corresponding .UPF file. The core contribution for the given number of core electrons is added by critic2 every time the field is evaluated using critic2’s internal density tables.

### NC or US pseudopotential calculation

If you ran a US or NC pseudopotential calculation, then you only have the pseudodensity (plot_num=0, rho.cube). In this case, load the pseudo-density twice and activate core augmentation the first time. Use the core-augmented field to generate the atomic basins and the non-augmented field as the integrand:

crystal rho.cube
load rho.cube core zpsp c 4 o 6 n 5 h 1
integrable 2
yt


## VASP

To calculate Bader charges in VASP, you need to run the SCF calculation in the usual way, but including the following tag in the INCAR file:

LAECHG = .TRUE.


This will generate two additional files: the AECCAR0, containing the core density, and the AECCAR2, containing the reconstructed valence density. The sum of the two needs to be used to generate the atomic basins, while the pseudo-density, contained in the CHGCAR file, is integrated in them.

These operations can be all done within critic2 cheaply and without generating any additional files, using the following input:

crystal CHGCAR
load as "$1+$2"
reference 3
integrable 4
yt


As with the cube files, any of the CHGCAR, AECCAR0, etc. files specifies the crystal structure inside, so you can have it critic2 read it from any of them. (You can also use the POSCAR and the POTCAR.) We load the AECCAR0 as field 1, and the AECCAR2 as field 2, and create field 3 as the sum of those two files. Field 3 now contains the all-electron density, and we set it as reference in order to have it generate the atomic basins. Finally, we load the CHGCAR file as field 4 and mark it as an integrand for our YT calculation.

## Abinit

If you are using PAW datasets, then the reconstructed valence density can be obtained in abinit using:

prtden 2


in the input file. This creates two density files: the pseudo-density (with suffix _DEN) and the reconstructed valence density (_PAWDEN). Currently, there is no way to obtain the all-electron density from abinit directly. In the case of a non-PAW calculation, using either norm-conserving or ultrasoft pseudopotentials, then prtden 2 is not available and you have to use:

prtden 1


which writes the _DEN file only.

If you have the _PAWDEN file, the calculation of the atomic charges is straightforward:

crystal urea_o_DEN
load urea_o_PAWDEN core zpsp h 1 c 4 n 5 o 6
integrable 2
yt


The _DEN and _PAWDEN files both contain the structural information about the crystal, so they can be used to read the crystal structure in critic2 through the CRYSTAL keyword. The _PAWDEN density is loaded as field 1 and is augmented with core electrons corresponding to the pseudopotential charges (atomic number minus number of replaced core electrons). The all-electron density obtained in this way is used to generate the atomic basins. The pseudo-density (_DEN) is then loaded as the second field and integrated inside the basins.

If you ran a non-PAW calculation, then replace the _PAWDEN file with the _DEN file in the input above.

## Output for urea

The outputs from all the calculations above are very similar. The main table containing the results of the integration appears right at the end of the output:

* Integrated atomic properties
# (See key above for interpretation of column headings.)
# Integrable properties 1 to 4
# Id   cp   ncp   Name  Z   mult     Volume            Pop             Lap             $2 1 1 1 C_ 6 -- 3.22216552E+01 4.21263334E+00 1.02937536E-01 2.19098664E+00 2 2 1 C_ 6 -- 3.22216552E+01 4.21263334E+00 1.02937536E-01 2.19098664E+00 3 3 2 H_ 1 -- 2.00349124E+01 5.13744359E-01 -3.64792425E-04 5.13705108E-01 4 4 2 H_ 1 -- 2.00349124E+01 5.13744359E-01 -3.64792425E-04 5.13705108E-01 5 5 2 H_ 1 -- 2.00349124E+01 5.13744359E-01 -3.64792425E-04 5.13705108E-01 6 6 2 H_ 1 -- 2.00349124E+01 5.13744359E-01 -3.64792425E-04 5.13705108E-01 7 7 3 H_ 1 -- 2.05322160E+01 5.11380307E-01 -1.96443849E-02 5.11335066E-01 8 8 3 H_ 1 -- 2.05322160E+01 5.11380307E-01 -1.96443849E-02 5.11335066E-01 9 9 3 H_ 1 -- 2.05322160E+01 5.11380307E-01 -1.96443849E-02 5.11335066E-01 10 10 3 H_ 1 -- 2.05322160E+01 5.11380307E-01 -1.96443849E-02 5.11335066E-01 11 11 4 O_ 8 -- 1.18754676E+02 9.40395235E+00 -1.26560690E-01 7.23176246E+00 12 12 4 O_ 8 -- 1.18754676E+02 9.40395235E+00 -1.26560690E-01 7.23176246E+00 13 13 5 N_ 7 -- 1.26002600E+02 8.28697652E+00 3.18207545E-02 6.26367524E+00 14 14 5 N_ 7 -- 1.26002600E+02 8.28697652E+00 3.18207545E-02 6.26367524E+00 15 15 5 N_ 7 -- 1.26002600E+02 8.28697652E+00 3.18207545E-02 6.26367524E+00 16 16 5 N_ 7 -- 1.26002600E+02 8.28697652E+00 3.18207545E-02 6.26367524E+00 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sum 9.68231575E+02 6.44815761E+01 -1.12894416E-12 4.80003598E+01  In this table, critic lists the 16 attractors it found, which in this case are all associated to atoms in the system (there are no non-nuclear maxima). In addition, it gives the following columns: the calculated atomic volumes (Volume), the all-electron density integrated in its basins (Pop), the Laplacian of the all-electron density (Lap), and the integral of field number 2 (the pseudo-density) in the all-electron basins ($2). The last column gives the valence electron population for each atom. The atomic charge equals the pseudopotential charge minus the valence electron population. For instance, the charge for carbon in this system would be $$Z_{\rm psps} - N = 4 - 2.19 = 1.81$$.

Because critic2 detects that urea is a molecular crystal, it will also helpfully list for you the integrated properties of the molecules as a whole:

* Integrated molecular properties
# (See key above for interpretation of column headings.)
# Integrable properties 1 to 4
# Mol     Volume            Pop             Lap             \$2
1     4.84115787E+02  3.22407881E+01 -1.12265058E-12  2.40001799E+01
2     4.84115787E+02  3.22407881E+01 -6.32133235E-15  2.40001799E+01


The interpretation of the columns is the same, but this time the numbers refer to each of the two urea molecules in the unit cell. Because they are equivalent by symmetry, their volumes and electron populations are the same and the charge is zero (the sum of the pseudopotential charges in each molecule is 24).

## Example files package

Files: example_11_01.tar.xz. Run the examples as follows:

• QE/PAW calculation (qe_paw):
## generate the pseudopotentials first
ld1.x < h.in
ld1.x < c.in
ld1.x < n.in
ld1.x < o.in
## run the SCF calculation
pw.x < urea.scf.in > urea.scf.out
## get the densities
pp.x < urea.rho.in > urea.rho.out
pp.x < urea.rhoval.in > urea.rhoval.out
pp.x < urea.rhoae.in > urea.rhoae.out
## run critic2
critic2 urea.cri urea.cro


If the rhoae.cube was not generated, you are using an old version of QE. In that case, edit urea.cri, comment out the first block and uncomment the second block.

• QE/NC or US calculation (qe_nc and qe_us):
## generate the pseudopotentials first
ld1.x < h.in
ld1.x < c.in
ld1.x < n.in
ld1.x < o.in
## run the SCF calculation
pw.x < urea.scf.in > urea.scf.out
## get the density
pp.x < urea.rho.in > urea.rho.out
## run critic2
critic2 urea.cri urea.cro

• VASP calculation: first, create the POTCAR file by concatenating the POTCARs for C, H, O, and N, in that order. Then:
vasp
critic2 urea.cri urea.cro

• abinit:
abinit ## or abinis/abinip if you are running a really old version
critic2 urea.cri