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10.5 Visualizing and Plotting Orbitals, Densities, and Other Volumetric Data

10.5.5 Direct Generation of “Cube” Files

(July 14, 2022)

As an alternative to the output format discussed above, all of the $plots data may be output directly to a sub-directory named plots in the job’s scratch directory, which must therefore be saved using the –save option described in Section 2.2. The plotting data in this sub-directory are not written in the plot.* format described above, but rather in the form of so-called “cube” file, one for each orbital or density that is requested. The cube file format is a standard one for volumetric data and consists of a small header followed by the orbital or density values at each grid point, in ASCII format. (Consult Ref.  for the complete format specification.) Because the grid coordinates themselves are not printed (their locations are implicit from information contained in the header), each individual cube file is much smaller than the corresponding plot.* file would be. Cube files can be read by many standard (and freely-available) graphics programs, including MacMolPlt 119 Bode B. M., Gordon M. S.
J. Mol. Graphics Mod.
(1998), 16, pp. 133.
Link
12 Albrecht A. C.
J. Chem. Phys.
(1961), 34, pp. 1476.
Link
and VMD. 523 Humphrey W., Dalke A., Schulten K.
J. Molec. Graphics
(1996), 14, pp. 33.
Link
15 Almlöf J., Faegri K., Korsell K.
J. Comput. Chem.
(1982), 3, pp. 385.
Link
VMD, in particular, is recommended for generation of high-quality images for publication. Cube files for the MOs and densities requested in the $plots section are requested by setting MAKE_CUBE_FILES to TRUE, with the $plots section specified as described in Section 10.5.4.

MAKE_CUBE_FILES

MAKE_CUBE_FILES
       Requests generation of cube files for MOs, NTOs, or NBOs.
TYPE:
       LOGICAL/STRING
DEFAULT:
       FALSE
OPTIONS:
       FALSE Do not generate cube files. TRUE Generate cube files for MOs and densities. NTOS Generate cube files for NTOs. NBOS Generate cube files for NBOs.
RECOMMENDATION:
       None

PLOT_SPIN_DENSITY

PLOT_SPIN_DENSITY
       Requests the generation of spin densities, ρα and ρβ.
TYPE:
       LOGICAL
DEFAULT:
       FALSE
OPTIONS:
       FALSE Do not generate spin density cube files. TRUE Generate spin density cube files.
RECOMMENDATION:
       Set to TRUE if spin densities are desired in addition to total densities. Requires that MAKE_CUBE_FILES be set to TRUE as well, and that one or more total densities is requested in the $plots input section. The corresponding spin densities will then be generated also.

The following example illustrates the generation of cube files for a ground and an excited-state density, including the corresponding spin densities. In this example, the plots sub-directory of the job’s scratch directory should contain files named dens.N.cube (total density for state N, where N=0 or 1 represents the ground and first excited state, respectively), dens_alpha.N.cube and dens_beta.N.cube (ρα and ρβ for each state), and dens_spin.N.cube (ρα-ρβ for each state.)

Example 10.14  Generating density and spin-density cube files for the ground and first excited state of the HOO radical.

$molecule
   0 2
   H     1.004123   -0.180454    0.000000
   O    -0.246002    0.596152    0.000000
   O    -1.312366   -0.230256    0.000000
$end

$rem
   PLOT_SPIN_DENSITY  true
   MAKE_CUBE_FILES    true
   SCF_CONVERGENCE    8
   METHOD             b3lyp
   BASIS              6-31+G*
   CIS_N_ROOTS        1
$end

$plots
grid information and request to plot 2 densities
   20  -5.0  5.0
   20  -5.0  5.0
   20  -5.0  5.0
   0  2  0  0
   0  1
$end

Cube files are also available for natural transition orbitals (Sections 7.14.3 and 10.5.3) by setting MAKE_CUBE_FILES to NTOS, although in this case the procedure is somewhat more complicated, due to the state-specific nature of these quantities. Cube files for the NTOs are generated only for a single excited state, whose identity is specified using CUBEFILE_STATE. Cube files for additional states are readily obtained using a sequence of Q-Chem jobs, in which the second (and subsequent) jobs read in the converged ground- and excited-state information using SCF_GUESS and SKIP_CIS_RPA.

CUBEFILE_STATE

CUBEFILE_STATE
       Determines which excited state is used to generate cube files
TYPE:
       INTEGER
DEFAULT:
       None
OPTIONS:
       n Generate cube files for the nth excited state
RECOMMENDATION:
       None

An additional complication is the manner in which to specify which NTOs will be output as cube files. When MAKE_CUBE_FILES is set to TRUE, this is specified in the $plots section, in the same way that MOs would be specified for plotting. However, one must understand the order in which the NTOs are stored. For a system with Nα α-spin MOs, the occupied NTOs 1,2,,Nα are stored in order of increasing amplitudes, so that the Nα’th occupied NTO is the most important. The virtual NTOs are stored next, in order of decreasing importance. According to this convention, the principle NTO pair consists of the final occupied orbital and the first virtual orbital, for any particular excited state. Thus, orbitals Nα and Nα+1 represent the most important NTO pair, while orbitals Nα-1 and Nα+2 represent the second most important NTO pair, etc..

Example 10.15  Generating cube files for the excitation between the principle occupied and virtual NTOs of the second singlet excited state of uracil. Note that Nα=29 for uracil.

$molecule
   0 1
   N    -2.181263     0.068208     0.000000
   C    -2.927088    -1.059037     0.000000
   N    -4.320029    -0.911094     0.000000
   C    -4.926706     0.301204     0.000000
   C    -4.185901     1.435062     0.000000
   C    -2.754591     1.274555     0.000000
   N    -1.954845     2.338369     0.000000
   H    -0.923072     2.224557     0.000000
   H    -2.343008     3.268581     0.000000
   H    -4.649401     2.414197     0.000000
   H    -6.012020     0.301371     0.000000
   H    -4.855603    -1.768832     0.000000
   O    -2.458932    -2.200499     0.000000
$end

$plots
Plot the dominant NTO pair, N --> N+1
   25  -5.0  5.0
   25  -5.0  5.0
   25  -5.0  5.0
   2  0  0  0
   29  30
$end

$rem
   METHOD           B3LYP
   BASIS            6-31+G*
   CIS_N_ROOTS      2
   CIS_TRIPLETS     FALSE
   NTO_PAIRS        TRUE    ! calculate the NTOs
   MAKE_CUBE_FILES  NTOS    ! generate NTO cube files...
   CUBEFILE_STATE   2       ! ...for the 2nd excited state
$end

Cube files for Natural Bond Orbitals (for either the ground state or any CIS, RPA, of TDDFT excited states) can be generated in much the same way, by setting MAKE_CUBE_FILES equal to NBOS, and using CUBEFILE_STATE to select the desired electronic state. CUBEFILE_STATE = 0 selects ground-state NBOs. The particular NBOs to be plotted are selected using the $plots section, recognizing that Q-Chem stores the NBOs in order of decreasing occupancies, with all α-spin NBOs preceding any β-spin NBOs, in the case of an unrestricted SCF calculation. (For ground states, there is typically one strongly-occupied NBO for each electron.) NBO cube files are saved to the plots sub-directory of the job’s scratch directory. One final caveat: to get NBO cube files, the user must specify the AONBO option in the $nbo section, as shown in the following example.

Example 10.16  Generating cube files for the NBOs of the first excited state of H2O.

$rem
   METHOD           CIS
   BASIS            CC-PVTZ
   CIS_N_ROOTS      1
   CIS_TRIPLETS     FALSE
   NBO              2      ! ground- and excited-state NBO
   MAKE_CUBE_FILES  NBOS   ! generate NBO cube files...
   CUBEFILE_STATE   1      ! ...for the first excited state
$end

$nbo
  AONBO
$end

$molecule
   0 1
   O
   H  1  0.95
   H  1  0.95  2  104.5
$end

$plots
Plot the 5 high-occupancy NBOs, one for each alpha electron
   40  -8.0  8.0
   40  -8.0  8.0
   40  -8.0  8.0
   5  0  0  0
   1  2  3  4  5
$end

Example 10.17  NTO and NBO plots with the new format for the $plots section: NTOs for the first excited state (two pairs) and five NBOs for both the ground and first excited state are plotted. The aonbo keyword in the nbo section below is required.

$molecule
  0 1
   O
   H 1 0.95
   H 1 0.95 2 104.5
$end

$rem
   METHOD¯¯     cis
   BASIS¯¯     cc-pvtz
   CIS_N_ROOTS       1
   CIS_TRIPLETS      false
   nbo               2  ! ground- and excited-state NBO
   NTO_PAIRS         2  ! triggers NTO analysis
   MAKE_CUBE_FILES   true
   PLOTS             true
$end

$nbo
   aonbo
$end

$plots
   grid_points 50 50 50
   nbo_state   0-1
   natural_bond_orbital 1-5
   natural_transition_orbital 1
$end