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    The Open Quantum Materials Database (OQMD): assessing the accuracy of DFT formation energies
    (London : Nature Publ. Group, 2015) Kirklin, Scott; Saal, James E.; Meredig, Bryce; Thompson, Alex; Doak, Jeff W.; Aykol, Muratahan; Rühl, Stephan; Wolverton, Chris
    The Open Quantum Materials Database (OQMD) is a high-throughput database currently consisting of nearly 300,000 density functional theory (DFT) total energy calculations of compounds from the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD) and decorations of commonly occurring crystal structures. To maximise the impact of these data, the entire database is being made available, without restrictions, at www.oqmd.org/download. In this paper, we outline the structure and contents of the database, and then use it to evaluate the accuracy of the calculations therein by comparing DFT predictions with experimental measurements for the stability of all elemental ground-state structures and 1,670 experimental formation energies of compounds. This represents the largest comparison between DFT and experimental formation energies to date. The apparent mean absolute error between experimental measurements and our calculations is 0.096 eV/atom. In order to estimate how much error to attribute to the DFT calculations, we also examine deviation between different experimental measurements themselves where multiple sources are available, and find a surprisingly large mean absolute error of 0.082 eV/atom. Hence, we suggest that a significant fraction of the error between DFT and experimental formation energies may be attributed to experimental uncertainties. Finally, we evaluate the stability of compounds in the OQMD (including compounds obtained from the ICSD as well as hypothetical structures), which allows us to predict the existence of ~3,200 new compounds that have not been experimentally characterised and uncover trends in material discovery, based on historical data available within the ICSD.
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    Comprehensive scan for nonmagnetic Weyl semimetals with nonlinear optical response
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2020) Xu, Q.; Zhang, Y.; Koepernik, K.; Shi, W.; van den Brink, J.; Felser, C.; Sun, Y.
    First-principles calculations have recently been used to develop comprehensive databases of nonmagnetic topological materials that are protected by time-reversal or crystalline symmetry. However, owing to the low symmetry requirement of Weyl points, a symmetry-based approach to identifying topological states cannot be applied to Weyl semimetals (WSMs). To date, WSMs with Weyl points in arbitrary positions are absent from the well-known databases. In this work, we develop an efficient algorithm to search for Weyl points automatically and establish a database of nonmagnetic WSMs with Weyl points near the Fermi level based on the experimental non-centrosymmetric crystal structures in the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD). In total, 46 Weyl semimetals were discovered to have nearly clean Fermi surfaces and Weyl points within 300 meV of the Fermi level. Nine of them are chiral structures which may exhibit the quantized circular photogalvanic effect. In addition, the nonlinear optical response is studied and the giant shift current is explored. Besides nonmagnetic WSMs, our powerful tools can also be used in the discovery of magnetic topological materials.