Dear all, I am currently switching from Quantum ESPRESSO (QE) to CP2K as my main computational software package (currently using version 8.2) and I am struggling a bit with the convergence tests for the PW cutoffs (REL_CUTOFF and CUTOFF). My intended structures to investigate are moderate-sized organic molecules adsorbed onto a (101) surface of anatase (TiO2) and as such I am using an optimized structure from my QE calculations as a representative system to do my convergence tests on (see attached file 3mppa-md1.inp). I based my method on the method proposed by Prof. Hütter in a previous <a href="https://groups.google.com/g/cp2k/c/ySUAYEgwmhc">post</a>, whereby I first set REL_CUTOFF=CUTOFF and increase the value until I reach convergence. The results I got are the following: # Grid cutoff vs total energy # Date: Fri Jun 2 14:09:32 CEST 2023 # PWD: /home/lluntadilal/cp2k/scf/dft/test/final/convergence/cutoff # Cutoff (Ry) | Relative cutoff (Ry) | Total energy (a.u.) | Total charge (a.u.) 300 300 -3303.4693919783 0.0000049144 400 400 -3303.4678396250 -0.0000000118 500 500 -3303.4658109937 -0.0000000003 600 600 -3303.4675587607 -0.0000000003 700 700 -3303.4671967038 -0.0000000003 800 800 -3303.4663947747 -0.0000000003 900 900 -3303.4659684557 -0.0000000003 1000 1000 -3303.4657584430 -0.0000000002 1100 1100 -3303.4651289391 -0.0000000002 1200 1200 -3303.4650897922 -0.0000000003 1300 1300 -3303.4651986119 -0.0000000002 1400 1400 -3303.4651800964 -0.0000000002 1500 1500 -3303.4650037920 -0.0000000002 1600 1600 -3303.4650956961 -0.0000000002 1700 1700 -3303.4651701336 -0.0000000002 1800 1800 -3303.4651578599 -0.0000000002 1900 1900 -3303.4651999129 -0.0000000002 2000 2000 -3303.4651936486 -0.0000000002 I have several questions about this: <ol type="1" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"> <li value="1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" lang="en-US">I would like to be able to give the energies of my structures accurate up to 0.01 kJ/mol which is about 1.10^-6 a.u. Unfortunately, I only reach this level of accuracy at a cutoff of 2000 Ry… This seems quite a large cutoff as I see similar calculations with cutoffs between 400-1200 Ry and also because the charge is already converged at 500 Ry. Am I doing something wrong or is my criteria just too strict? Does this perhaps have anything to do with the fact that the relative position of the atoms to the grid points changes with the cutoff as mentioned by Prof. Hütter in his post?</li> <li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" lang="en-US">The <a href="https://www.cp2k.org/faq:cutoff">faq</a> and <a href="https://www.cp2k.org/events:2018_summer_school:converging_cutoff">converging cutoff exercise</a> state that the PW cutoff should be large enough to properly represent the Gaussian with the largest exponent, which in my system seems to be oxygen with an exponent around 10.4 for the DZVP-MOLOPT-SR-GTH basis set. So is it then correct to use such a complex structure (3-layer slab with adsorbate and 30Å vacuum width) with "complex" options (dipole and dispersion corrections) as input for my convergence tests or could I use a simpler structure (e.g. an oxygen molecule in a box) with more basic settings (no corrections) or would this be insufficient?</li> <li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" lang="en-US">I may be planning to use larger basis sets ("regular" DZVP, TZVP or TZV2P) of the MOLOPT family in the future and I have seen that the largest exponents for these sets is the same as that for the smaller DZVP-SR basis set (10.4 for oxygen). Is it correct then to assume that once I obtain optimized cutoffs for DZVP-SR, these can be kept when switching to any of the larger basis sets?</li> <li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" lang="en-US">Lastly, I would like to ask for some general feedback on the input for my slab calculation as this is my first calculation on CP2K and I'm still getting used to all the settings. Is it okay to use 3D periodicity with a large vacuum space and a dipole correction or is it better to use 2D periodicity with a corresponding Poisson solver (e.g. MT, analytic or wavelet)? Is it okay to use the WC functional with basis sets, pseudopotentials and D3 settings optimized for PBE?</li> </ol> Any help would be greatly appreciated! Kind regards, Léon P.S. For those looking at my structure in a graphical environment and noticing that some atoms are outside the unit cell. This is due to the fact that my cell was monoclinic and I made the unit cell orthorhombic to save computational time and trouble (some codes have trouble dealing with cells that are not orthorhombic), but I did not yet wrap all my atoms into the unit cell. However, I don't think this should be a problem under PBC. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "cp2k" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to <a href="mailto:cp2k+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com">cp2k+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com</a>. To view this discussion on the web visit <a href="https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cp2k/b256223c-72bb-47a8-a1f2-06618218c9bdn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer">https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cp2k/b256223c-72bb-47a8-a1f2-06618218c9bdn%40googlegroups.com</a>.