Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses computer simulation to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses methods of theoretical chemistry, incorporated into computer programs, to calculate the structures and properties of molecules, groups of molecules, and solids. The importance of this subject stems from the fact that, with the exception of some relatively recent findings related to the hydrogen molecular ion, achieving an accurate quantum mechanical depiction of chemical systems analytically, or in a closed form, is not feasible. The complexity inherent in many-body problem exacerbates the challenge of providing detailed descriptions in quantum mechanical systems. While computational results normally complement the information obtained by chemical experiments, it can in some cases predict unobserved chemical phenomena.
MOLPRO is a software package used for accurate ab initio quantum chemistry calculations. It is developed by Peter Knowles at Cardiff University and Hans-Joachim Werner at Universität Stuttgart in collaboration with other authors.
Q-Chem is a general-purpose electronic structure package featuring a variety of established and new methods implemented using innovative algorithms that enable fast calculations of large systems on various computer architectures, from laptops and regular lab workstations to midsize clusters and HPCC, using density functional and wave-function based approaches. It offers an integrated graphical interface and input generator; a large selection of functionals and correlation methods, including methods for electronically excited states and open-shell systems; solvation models; and wave-function analysis tools. In addition to serving the computational chemistry community, Q-Chem also provides a versatile code development platform.
Amsterdam Density Functional (ADF) is a program for first-principles electronic structure calculations that makes use of density functional theory (DFT). ADF was first developed in the early seventies by the group of E. J. Baerends from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and by the group of T. Ziegler from the University of Calgary. Nowadays many other academic groups are contributing to the software. Software for Chemistry & Materials (SCM), formerly known as Scientific Computing & Modelling is a spin-off company from the Baerends group. SCM has been coordinating the development and distribution of ADF since 1995. Together with the rise in popularity of DFT in the nineties, ADF has become a popular computational chemistry software package used in the industrial and academic research. ADF excels in spectroscopy, transition metals, and heavy elements problems. A periodic structure counterpart of ADF named BAND is available to study bulk crystals, polymers, and surfaces. The Amsterdam Modeling Suite has expanded beyond DFT since 2010, with the semi-empirical MOPAC code, the Quantum_ESPRESSO plane wave code, a density-functional based tight binding (DFTB) module, a reactive force field module ReaxFF, and an implementation of Klamt's COSMO-RS method, which also includes COSMO-SAC, UNIFAC, and QSPR.
SIESTA is an original method and its computer program implementation, to efficiently perform electronic structure calculations and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of molecules and solids. SIESTA uses strictly localized basis sets and the implementation of linear-scaling algorithms. Accuracy and speed can be set in a wide range, from quick exploratory calculations to highly accurate simulations matching the quality of other approaches, such as the plane-wave and all-electron methods.
PQS is a general purpose quantum chemistry program. Its roots go back to the first ab initio gradient program developed in Professor Peter Pulay's group but now it is developed and distributed commercially by Parallel Quantum Solutions. There is a reduction in cost for academic users and a site license. Its strong points are geometry optimization, NMR chemical shift calculations, and large MP2 calculations, and high parallel efficiency on computing clusters. It includes many other capabilities including Density functional theory, the semiempirical methods, MINDO/3, MNDO, AM1 and PM3, Molecular mechanics using the SYBYL 5.0 Force Field, the quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics mixed method using the ONIOM method, natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis and COSMO solvation models. Recently, a highly efficient parallel CCSD(T) code for closed shell systems has been developed. This code includes many other post Hartree–Fock methods: MP2, MP3, MP4, CISD, CEPA, QCISD and so on.
MOLCAS is an ab initio computational chemistry program, developed as a joint project by a number of international institutes. MOLCAS is developed by scientists to be used by scientists. It is not primarily a commercial product and it is not sold in order to produce a fortune for its owner.
Jaguar is a computer software package used for ab initio quantum chemistry calculations for both gas and solution phases. It is commercial software marketed by the company Schrödinger. The program was originated in research groups of Richard Friesner and William Goddard and was initially called PS-GVB.
Ab initio quantum chemistry methods are computational chemistry methods based on quantum chemistry. The term ab initio was first used in quantum chemistry by Robert Parr and coworkers, including David Craig in a semiempirical study on the excited states of benzene. The background is described by Parr. Ab initio means "from first principles" or "from the beginning", implying that the only inputs into an ab initio calculation are physical constants. Ab initio quantum chemistry methods attempt to solve the electronic Schrödinger equation given the positions of the nuclei and the number of electrons in order to yield useful information such as electron densities, energies and other properties of the system. The ability to run these calculations has enabled theoretical chemists to solve a range of problems and their importance is highlighted by the awarding of the Nobel prize to John Pople and Walter Kohn.
The fragment molecular orbital method (FMO) is a computational method that can be used to calculate very large molecular systems with thousands of atoms using ab initio quantum-chemical wave functions.
Gabedit is a graphical user interface to GAMESS (US), Gaussian, MOLCAS, MOLPRO, MPQC, OpenMopac, PC GAMESS, ORCA and Q-Chem computational chemistry packages.
Car–Parrinello molecular dynamics or CPMD refers to either a method used in molecular dynamics or the computational chemistry software package used to implement this method.
Todd J. Martínez is a David Mulvane Ehrsam and Edward Curtis Franklin Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and a Professor of Photon Science at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
Molecular modeling on GPU is the technique of using a graphics processing unit (GPU) for molecular simulations.
CP2K is a freely available (GPL) quantum chemistry and solid state physics program package, written in Fortran 2008, to perform atomistic simulations of solid state, liquid, molecular, periodic, material, crystal, and biological systems. It provides a general framework for different methods: density functional theory (DFT) using a mixed Gaussian and plane waves approach (GPW) via LDA, GGA, MP2, or RPA levels of theory, classical pair and many-body potentials, semi-empirical and tight-binding Hamiltonians, as well as Quantum Mechanics/Molecular Mechanics (QM/MM) hybrid schemes relying on the Gaussian Expansion of the Electrostatic Potential (GEEP). The Gaussian and Augmented Plane Waves method (GAPW) as an extension of the GPW method allows for all-electron calculations. CP2K can do simulations of molecular dynamics, metadynamics, Monte Carlo, Ehrenfest dynamics, vibrational analysis, core level spectroscopy, energy minimization, and transition state optimization using NEB or dimer method.
Sourav Pal (1955-) is an Indian theoretical chemist and former professor of chemistry at IIT Bombay, and former director of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata. He was a director of the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory in Pune and an adjunct professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune.
BigDFT is a free software package for physicists and chemists, distributed under the GNU General Public License, whose main program allows the total energy, charge density, and electronic structure of systems made of electrons and nuclei to be calculated within density functional theory (DFT), using pseudopotentials, and a wavelet basis.
