Floppy systems - use of internal degrees of freedom
Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2009 12:40 pm
I want to calculate the optimal geometry of a molecule adsorbed on a surface. The internal degrees of freedom of the molecule (bond lengths, internal angles etc) are quite easily calculated, but the angle between the molecule and the surface is not properly defined (it is floppy, i.e. the energy difference between two different angles is not large). In Cartesian coordinates, this means that all the positions of all the atoms are changed all the time at each iteration step and this takes a very long time to converge, if it does converge at all. I have heard that there exists a tool to optimize in internal coordinates, just as this is done in SIESTA, but I cannot locate it anywhere. Can anyone help me to confirm if this tool exists, where I can find it and how I can use it? Thanx.