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NUCIND

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Revision as of 16:44, 12 March 2025 by Csheldon (talk | contribs)

NUCIND = .TRUE. | .FALSE.
Default: NUCIND = .FALSE. 

Description: Allows the nuclear-independent chemical shielding (NICS) to be calculated.


In conjunction with LCHIMAG = True, NUCIND calculates the chemical shielding tensor [math]\displaystyle{ \sigma_{ij} }[/math] at positions off-nucleus, hence nuclear-independent chemical shielding (NICS) [1][2]. When NUCIND = True, by default these are calculated on the FFT grid NGX x NGY x NGZ in ppm. The output is written to NICS.

It is also written to vaspout.h5, if compiled with HDF5 support. You can find the data groups

/results/nics            Group
/results/nics/grid       Dataset {3}
/results/nics/structure  Group
/results/nics/structure/position Group
/results/nics/structure/position/direct_coordinates Dataset {SCALAR}
/results/nics/structure/position/ion_sha256 Dataset {2}
/results/nics/structure/position/ion_types Dataset {2}
/results/nics/structure/position/lattice_vectors Dataset {3, 3}
/results/nics/structure/position/number_ion_types Dataset {2}
/results/nics/structure/position/position_ions Dataset {8, 3}
/results/nics/structure/position/scale Dataset {SCALAR}
/results/nics/structure/position/system Dataset {SCALAR}
/results/nics/values     Dataset {9, 108, 108, 108}

and use py4vasp to access these, e.g., using

import py4vasp as pv
calc = pv.Calculation.from_path(".")
calc.nics.plot()

to select the isotropic chemical shielding [math]\displaystyle{ \sigma_{iso} }[/math] in 3D space. It will produce an isosurface of the shielding (positive) and deshielding (negative) over the crystal structure.

Alternatively, produce a 2D contour plot of the NICS in a plane:

import py4vasp as pv
calc = pv.Calculation.from_path(".")
calc.nics.to_contour(a=0.5)

It will result in a contour plot showing the isotropic chemical shielding [math]\displaystyle{ \sigma_{iso} }[/math] in the selected plane. The plane is selected as a fraction x of the lattice vector. Here, x=0.5 corresponds to half of the primary lattice vector [math]\displaystyle{ \mathbf{a} }[/math]. For the other lattice vectors use b=x or c=x.

For both the 2D and 3D plots, the isotropic chemical shielding is used by default. You can alternatively select the other properties (see LCHIMAG for details. Herzfeld-Berger convention is followed [3]) by inputting them as arguments into the functions, e.g., calc.nics.plot("anisotropic") or calc.nics.to_contour("span", a=0.5):

  • "isotropic" (default) - plot the isotropic chemical shielding [math]\displaystyle{ \sigma_{iso} }[/math]
  • "anisotropic" - plot the anisotropic chemical shielding [math]\displaystyle{ \sigma_{ani} }[/math]
  • "span" - plots the span [math]\displaystyle{ \Omega }[/math]
  • "skew" - plot the skew [math]\displaystyle{ \kappa }[/math]

Alternatively, if the POSNICS file is present, then the positions defined within that file will be used. These chemical shielding tensors are printed in the OUTCAR file as follows:

 nics 100
          1.187143         -0.003408         -0.000000
         -0.002977         -1.893648         -0.000000
         -0.000000         -0.000000         -0.326272

Related tags and articles

LCHIMAG, NICS, LNICSALL, LPOSNICS, POSNICS

References