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Eunji Sim

Yonsei University · Materials Science

About the Lab

Professor Eunji Sim's research lab specializes in advancing quantum mechanical methods for accurate electronic structure calculations, with a focus on density-functional theory (DFT) and its extensions. The lab develops and applies density-corrected DFT (DC-DFT) to overcome systematic errors in standard DFT, particularly for challenging systems such as transition metal complexes, stretched bonds, and open-shell species. By leveraging high-accuracy densities from wavefunction methods or other reference theories, the lab enables reliable predictions of electronic properties, reaction barriers, and spin-state energetics where conventional DFT fails. The lab also explores efficient quantum dynamics methods, including path integral and filtered propagator schemes, for simulating complex quantum systems in condensed phases.

density-corrected DFTelectronic structurequantum dynamicstransition metal complexesab initio methods

Research Overview

Papers
180
Total Citations
3,817
Papers (5y)
49
Primary Field
Materials Science

Research Output Trend

Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.

Publications per year (5y)
49total
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
Citations per year (5y)
538total
20222023202420252026

Selected Papers

15
1
Review|131 citations·2022
Improving Results by Improving Densities: Density-Corrected Density Functional Theory
Eunji Sim, Suhwan Song, Stefan Vuckovic, Kieron Burke
SJR Q1Journal of the American Chemical Society

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations have become widespread in both chemistry and materials, because they usually provide useful accuracy at much lower computational cost than wavefunction-based methods. All practical DFT calculations require an approximation to the unknown exchange-correlation energy, which is then used self-consistently in the Kohn-Sham scheme to produce an approximate energy from an approximate density. Density-corrected DFT is simply the study of the relative contrib

Atomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsPhysics and Astronomy
2
Article|115 citations·2018
Quantifying Density Errors in DFT
Eunji Sim, Suhwan Song, Kieron Burke
SJR Q1The Journal of Physical Chemistry LettersOA

We argue that any general mathematical measure of density error, no matter how reasonable, is too arbitrary to be of universal use. However, the energy functional itself provides a universal relevant measure of density errors. For the self-consistent density of any Kohn-Sham calculation with an approximate functional, the theory of density-corrected density functional theory (DC-DFT) provides an accurate, practical estimate of this ideal measure. We show how to estimate the significance of the d

Atomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsPhysics and Astronomy
3
Article|109 citations·2018
Benchmarks and Reliable DFT Results for Spin Gaps of Small Ligand Fe(II) Complexes
Suhwan Song, Min Cheol Kim, Eunji Sim, Anouar Benali, Olle Heinonen, Kieron Burke
SJR Q1Journal of Chemical Theory and ComputationOA

All-electron fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo provides benchmark spin gaps for four Fe(II) octahedral complexes. Standard quantum chemical methods (semilocal DFT and CCSD(T)) fail badly for the energy difference between their high- and low-spin states. Density-corrected DFT is both significantly more accurate and reliable and yields a consistent prediction for the Fe-Porphyrin complex.

Electronic, Optical and Magnetic MaterialsMaterials Science
4
Article|109 citations·2015
Improved DFT Potential Energy Surfaces via Improved Densities
Min Cheol Kim, Hansol Park, Suyeon Son, Eunji Sim, Kieron Burke
SJR Q1The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters

Density-corrected DFT is a method that cures several failures of self-consistent semilocal DFT calculations by using a more accurate density instead. A novel procedure employs the Hartree-Fock density to bonds that are more severely stretched than ever before. This substantially increases the range of accurate potential energy surfaces obtainable from semilocal DFT for many heteronuclear molecules. We show that this works for both neutral and charged molecules. We explain why and explore more di

Materials ChemistryMaterials Science
5
Article|108 citations·1997
Filtered propagator functional for iterative dynamics of quantum dissipative systems
Eunji Sim, Nancy Makri
SJR Q1Computer Physics Communications
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsPhysics and Astronomy
6
Article|91 citations·2001
Quantum dynamics for a system coupled to slow baths: On-the-fly filtered propagator method
Eunji Sim
SJR Q1The Journal of Chemical Physics

An on-the-fly filtered propagator functional path integral scheme is introduced as an efficient way of calculating the iterative dynamics of complex condensed systems. Time evolution of the reduced density matrix of a dissipative quantum system is evaluated iteratively by filtering the negligible propagator elements at each propagation step. This on-the-fly filtering along with the finiteness of the bath memory dramatically reduces the configuration space to be integrated without losing numerica

Atomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsPhysics and Astronomy
7
Article|91 citations·2017
Identification of Droplet-Flow-Induced Electric Energy on Electrolyte–Insulator–Semiconductor Structure
Junwoo Park, Suhwan Song, Young-Jun Yang, Soon-Hyung Kwon, Eunji Sim, Youn Sang Kim
SJR Q1Journal of the American Chemical Society

Recently, various energy transducers driven by the relative motion of solids and liquids have been demonstrated. However, in relation to the energy transducer, a proper understanding of the dynamic behavior of ions remains unclear. Moreover, the energy density is low for practical usage mainly due to structural limitations, a lack of material development stemming from the currently poor understanding of the mechanisms, and the intermittently generated electricity given the characteristics of the

Biomedical EngineeringEngineering
8
Article|88 citations·1997
Path Integral Simulation of Charge Transfer Dynamics in Photosynthetic Reaction Centers
Eunji Sim, Nancy Makri
SJR Q1The Journal of Physical Chemistry B

We present accurate path integral simulations of the primary charge separation in bacterial photosynthesis. The process is modeled in terms of the three coupled electronic states corresponding to the photoexcited special pair (the electron donor), the reduced accessory bacteriochlorophyll (the bridge), and the reduced bacteriopheophytin (the primary electron acceptor) of the L branch which interact with a dissipative medium of protein and solvent degrees of freedom. The electronic state populati

Atomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsPhysics and Astronomy
9
Article|79 citations·2008
Biased Helical Folding of Chiral Oligoindole Foldamers
Veluru Ramesh Naidu, Min Cheol Kim, Jae-min Suk, Ho‐Joong Kim, Myongsoo Lee, Eunji Sim, Kyu‐Sung Jeong
SJR Q1Organic Letters

Oligoindole-based chiral foldamers have been synthesized by incorporating (S)- or (R)-1-phenylethylamine to both ends of the tetraindole scaffold. The oligoindoles fold into a helical conformation upon binding an anion by hydrogen bonds, which gives rise to an induced circular dichroism (CD) signal of large amplitude, implying the preferential formation of one helical isomer over another. Theoretical calculations suggest that the (P)-helix of the (S,S)-oligoindole 8a be more energetically stable

Molecular BiologyBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
10
Article|73 citations·2018
Halogen and Chalcogen Binding Dominated by Density-Driven Errors
Yeil Kim, Suhwan Song, Eunji Sim, Kieron Burke
SJR Q1The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters

Dispersion corrections of various kinds usually improve DFT energetics of weak noncovalent interactions. However, in some cases involving molecules or halides, especially those with σ-hole interactions, the density-driven errors of uncorrected DFT are larger than the dispersion corrections. In these abnormal situations, HF-DFT (using Hartree-Fock densities instead of self-consistent densities) greatly improves bond energies, while dispersion corrections can even worsen the results. On the other

Atomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsPhysics and Astronomy
11
Article|70 citations·2017
Ion Specificity on Electric Energy Generated by Flowing Water Droplets
Junwoo Park, Suhwan Song, ChaeHo Shin, YoungJun Yang, Stefan A. L. Weber, Eunji Sim, Youn Sang Kim
SJR Q1Angewandte Chemie International Edition

The development of energy-conversion devices using water movement has actively progressed. Ionovoltaic devices, which are driven by ion dynamics, show ion specificity by which different ions with identical charges show different output performance. However, the ion specificity remains poorly understood because the influence of the ion species on generated electric signals is not elucidated. The ion specificity in electric signals induced by flowing water droplet was investigated in terms of its

ElectrochemistryChemistry
12
Article|70 citations·1996
Tensor propagator with weight-selected paths for quantum dissipative dynamics with long-memory kernels
Eunji Sim, Nancy Makri
SJR Q2Chemical Physics Letters
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsPhysics and Astronomy
13
Article|66 citations·2021
Density Sensitivity of Empirical Functionals
Suhwan Song, Stefan Vuckovic, Eunji Sim, Kieron Burke
SJR Q1The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters

Empirical fitting of parameters in approximate density functionals is common. Such fits conflate errors in the self-consistent density with errors in the energy functional, but density-corrected DFT (DC-DFT) separates these two. We illustrate with catastrophic failures of a toy functional applied to H<sub>2</sub><sup>+</sup> at varying bond lengths, where the standard fitting procedure misses the exact functional; Grimme's D3 fit to noncovalent interactions, which can be contaminated by large de

Atomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsPhysics and Astronomy
14
Article|64 citations·2021
Superatom‐in‐Superatom [RhH@Ag24(SPhMe2)18]2− Nanocluster
Hanseok Yi, Sang Myeong Han, Suhwan Song, Min-Seok Kim, Eunji Sim, Dongil Lee
SJR Q1Angewandte Chemie International Edition

Abstract Heterometal doping is a powerful method for tuning the physicochemical properties of metal nanoclusters. While the heterometals doped into such nanoclusters predominantly include transition metals with closed d‐shells, the doping of open d‐shell metals remains largely unexplored. Herein, we report the first synthesis of a [RhHAg 24 (SPhMe 2 ) 18 ] 2− nanocluster, in which a Rh atom with open d‐shells ([Kr]4d 8 5s 1 ) is incorporated into the Ag 24 framework by forming a RhH superatom wi

Materials ChemistryMaterials Science
15
Article|56 citations·2020
Measuring Density-Driven Errors Using Kohn–Sham Inversion
Seungsoo Nam, Suhwan Song, Eunji Sim, Kieron Burke
SJR Q1Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation

Kohn-Sham (KS) inversion, that is, the finding of the exact KS potential for a given density, is difficult in localized basis sets. We study the precision and reliability of several inversion schemes, finding estimates of density-driven errors at a useful level of accuracy. In typical cases of substantial density-driven errors, Hartree-Fock density functional theory (HF-DFT) is almost as accurate as DFT evaluated on CCSD(T) densities. A simple approximation in practical HF-DFT also makes errors

Atomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsPhysics and Astronomy

Research Areas

Atomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsMaterials ChemistryElectrical and Electronic EngineeringMolecular BiologyBiomedical EngineeringBiomaterials

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