Getting results#

This page contains information about the properties that will be parsed by aiida_castep plugin.

Parsing output#

A <seed>.castep file is always written by CASTEP with human readable information. This plugin try to parser as much useful information as we can as possible. At the moment, the parser only supports verbosity level iprint = 1. For geometric optimizations, a <seed>.geom files will also be written containing atomic configuration of each iteration and often has higher precision than those in <seed>.castep.

For each CastepCalcultion the parser plugin creates a Dict with link named output_parameters for the single valued results. For example:

  • Final total/free/0K energy

  • Units of force, energy, stress if they are parsed

  • Miscellaneous: total time used, parallel efficiency

  • Warnings

Attribute of this node can be accessed easily via calc.res.xx. For example:

calc.res.free_energy

returns the free energy of the calculations and tab completion may be used in interactive environments. Array-like properties such as forces and stresses are stored in dedicated ArrayData node with link output_array. If there are multiple iterations, a TrajectoryData node is created instead with name output_trajectory It also contains other arrays for quantifies such as enthalpy/stress at each iteration.

CASTEP writes Kohn-Sham eigenvalues in a <seed>.bands file which can be used for plotting band structure or density of states. The file is parsed by this plugin and a BandsData node will be created.

Restarting a calculation#

Tracking lengthy calculations with multiple restarts can be complicated. This is where AiiDA’s ability of preserving provenance comes in. A create_restart method is available and for its capability please refer to the module document. For a continuations run, CASTEP reads in data from previous run from <seed>.check or <seed>.castep_bin files. The param and cell files are also read and some parameters can be changed at restart. When running under aiida_castep parent and children calculations will be linked via a RemoteFolder node.

Note

Parents and children may or may not share the same parameters. It depends on whether there is any change in parameters.

The command verdi node tree is useful for drawing a tree of children for visualisation in terminal.