The VASP Manual

Getting started

1) How to Install VASP	First install VASP.
2) Test Suite and Benchmarks	Next validate your installation with the test suit and benchmarks.
3) Workshops	The collection of workshops is a good place for the introduction to the basics of VASP.
4) Lectures	The collection of lectures is a good place to start as well.
5) Tutorials and Examples	The collection of tutorials and examples is a good place to learn the usage of VASP.

Input

As a minimal setup, VASP requires the user to prepare the following input files:

INCAR, KPOINTS, POSCAR, and POTCAR.

If present (in the directory where the calculation runs) the following output files of previous runs may be read as restart information:

CHGCAR and/or WAVECAR.

If present (in the directory where the calculation runs) the following file leads to a "soft" stop of the calculation:

STOPCAR.

Some specific features of VASP require additional output files from previous runs to be present:

Output

The main output file of VASP is the OUTCAR file.

The OSZICAR file ...

CHGCAR	WAVECAR	CHG	WAVEDER
CONTCAR	XDATCAR	EIGENVAL	IBZKPT
DOSCAR	PROCAR	PROOUT	PCDAT
ELFCAR	PARCHG	LOCPOT	TMPCAR
vasprun.xml	Wxxxx.tmp	WFULLxxxx.tmp	BSEFATBAND

Features

Electronic Minimization	PAW, Mixing, etc.
XC Functionals	LDA, GGA, metaGGA, Hybrids, vdW functionals, etc.
Hybrid Functionals	Hybrid-DFT methods, Hartree-Fock method, etc.
Structural Optimization	Ionic Mimimization Methods, etc.
Lattice Vibrations
Molecular Dynamics
Dielectric Properties	Static and frequendy dependent dielectric properties, Berry phases, Spectroscopy (UV, VIS, X-ray), etc.
Linear response
NMR
Many-Body Perturbation Theory	ACFDT, BSE, GW, etc.
Magnetism
Surfaces
Defects
Molecules
Transition States	Elastic band method, improved dimer method, etc.
Technical Implementation	Parallelization, GPU, etc.
Theoretical Background	Important relations covering DFT, PAW, etc.

Visualisation and Postprocessing

Here we can link to postprocessing programs and script, visualization tools, etc etc.

Support

If you have questions or run into trouble, please have a look and/or post a question at the VASP forum.

Requests for support from the VASP group are to be directed WITHOUT EXCEPTION to the official VASP email address: vasp.materialphysik@univie.ac.at.

Please note: we offer support on a courtesy base only, not as a contractual service.

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