Kyoto University · Physics and Astronomy
Professor Yoshio Nishimoto's research lab specializes in computational quantum chemistry, focusing on the development and application of advanced electronic structure methods for complex molecular systems. Key research directions include the design and simulation of polyoxometalate-based materials for energy storage applications, such as in lithium-ion molecular cluster batteries, and the integration of fragment molecular orbital (FMO) techniques with density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) and continuum solvation models to enable efficient, accurate simulations of large biomolecules and materials. The lab also pioneers analytic gradient methods for multireference perturbation theories like CASPT2 and RASPT2, enabling precise exploration of conical intersections and electronic transitions in reactive and excited-state processes.
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
Theoretical investigations are presented on the molecular and electronic structure changes that occur as α-Keggin-type polyoxometalate (POM(3-)) clusters [PM12O40](3-) (M = Mo, W) are converted toward their super-reduced POM(27-) state during the discharging process in lithium-based molecular cluster batteries. Density functional theory was employed in geometry optimization, and first-principles molecular dynamics simulations were used to explore local minima on the potential energy surface of n
We developed the energy and its gradient for the self-consistent-charge density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) method, combined with the fragment molecular orbital (FMO) approach, FMO-DFTB, including an optional a posteriori treatment for dispersion interaction, and evaluated its accuracy as well as computational efficiency for a set of representative systems: polypeptides, a DNA segment, and a small protein. The error in the total energy of FMO-DFTB versus full SCC-DFTB was below 1 kcal/mol fo
The energy and its analytic gradient are formulated for the fragment molecular orbital (FMO) method combined with density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) and the polarizable continuum model (PCM). The accuracy is demonstrated in comparison with unfragmented calculations and numerical gradients. The instability in the description of proteins using density functional theory (DFT) and DFTB is analyzed for both unfragmented and FMO methods. The cause of the instability is shown to be charged residue
Crossings between states involve complex electronic structures, making the accurate characterization of the crossing point difficult. In this study, the analytic derivatives of three complete active space second-order perturbation theory (CASPT2) variants as well as an extension of the restricted active space (RASPT2) are developed. These variants are applied to locating minimum energy conical intersections. Our results demonstrate that the three CASPT2 variants predict qualitatively similar res
The fully analytic gradient is developed for density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) combined with the fragment molecular orbital (FMO) method (FMO-DFTB). The response terms arising from the coupling of the electronic state to the embedding potential are derived, and the gradient accuracy is demonstrated on water clusters and a polypeptide. The radial distribution functions (RDFs) obtained with FMO-DFTB are found to be similar to those from conventional DFTB, while the computational cost is grea
The computational cost of analytic derivatives in multireference perturbation theory is strongly affected by the size of the active space employed in the reference self-consistent field calculation. To overcome previous limits on the active space size, the analytic gradients of single-state restricted active space second-order perturbation theory (RASPT2) and its complete active space second-order perturbation theory (CASPT2) have been developed and implemented in a local version of OpenMolcas.
The three‐body fragment molecular orbital (FMO3) method is formulated for density‐functional tight‐binding (DFTB). The energy, analytic gradient, and Hessian are derived in the gas phase, and the energy and analytic gradient are also derived for polarizable continuum model. The accuracy of FMO3‐DFTB is evaluated for five proteins, sodium cation in explicit solvent, and three isomers of polyalanine. It is shown that FMO3‐DFTB is considerably more accurate than FMO2‐DFTB. Molecular dynamics simula
A balanced treatment of dynamic and static electron correlation is important in computational chemistry, and multireference perturbation theory (MRPT) is able to do this at a reasonable computational cost. In this paper, analytic first-order derivatives, specifically gradients and dipole moments, are developed for a particular MRPT method, state-specific partially contracted n-electron valence state second-order perturbation theory (PC-NEVPT2). Only one linear equation needs to be solved for the
The exactly analytic gradient is derived and implemented for the fragment molecular orbital (FMO) method combined with density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) using adaptive frozen orbitals. The response contributions which arise from freezing detached molecular orbitals on the border between fragments are computed by solving Z-vector equations. The accuracy of the energy, its gradient, and optimized structures is verified on a set of representative inorganic materials and polypeptides. FMO-DFTB
We develop a formalism for the calculation of excitation energies and excited state gradients for the self-consistent-charge density-functional tight-binding method with the third-order contributions of a Taylor series of the density functional theory energy with respect to the fluctuation of electron density (time-dependent density-functional tight-binding (TD-DFTB3)). The formulation of the excitation energy is based on the existing time-dependent density functional theory and the older TD-DFT
Accounting for solvent effects in quantum chemical calculations is vital for the accurate description of potential energy surfaces in solution. In this study, we derive a formulation of the analytical first-order geometrical derivative of ground- and excited-state energies within the time-dependent density-functional tight-binding (TD-DFTB) method with the polarizable continuum model (PCM), TD-DFTB/PCM. The performance of this is then evaluated for a series of halogen-exchange SN2 reactions. DFT
The density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) formulation of the fragment molecular orbital method is combined with periodic boundary conditions. Long-range electrostatics and dispersion are evaluated with the Ewald summation technique. The first analytic derivatives of the energy with respect to atomic coordinates and lattice parameters are formulated. The accuracy of the method is established in comparison to numerical gradients and DFTB without fragmentation. The largest elementary cell in this
Abstract The molecular and electronic structures of Sc 2 C 2 @ C 3v –C 82 and Sc 2 @ C 3v –C 82 were investigated by means of conventional density functional theory (DFT) and the self‐consistent‐charge density‐functional tight‐binding (SCC‐DFTB, short: “DFTB”) method. In the DFT calculations, three functionals were adopted: BP86, B3LYP, and PBE. We find that it is necessary to employ tight geometry convergence criteria, which will lead to a reduction of the number of unique isomers. Generally, t
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