Quick start

Several examples on the usage of the vitrum package can be found the the examples folder on the vitrum github

Atomic structures

Reading in atomic structures

Using many of the vitrum classes requires having the atomic structure of a material. For this we use the ASE atoms object. The atomic structures outputed from a simulation, here conducted in LAMMPS can be read from a dump file using the following line:

from ase.io import read
atoms = read("md.lammpstrj", index=":" , format="lammps-dump-text")

Often the chemical symbols of the atoms in the atoms object are not the same as the chemical symbols used in the simulation. This can be corrected using the correct_atom_types function. For example, if the chemical symbols used in the simulation are ['Na', 'O', 'Si'], the following line can be used to correct the symbols:

from vitrum.utility import correct_atom_types
corr_atoms_dic = {1: 'Na', 2: 'O', 3:'Si'}
correct_atom_types(atoms, corr_atoms_dic)

Generating random structures

The get_random_packed function can be used to generate random structures. For example, to generate a random structure with 1000 atoms, the following line can be used:

from vitrum.utility import get_random_packed
atoms = get_random_packed(composition='SiO2', density=2.2, target_atoms=1000)

The composition parameter can be used to specify the chemical composition of the structure. The get_random_packed function includes several parameters to tailor random structure generation according to your given needs.

Scattering functions

The scattering class contains functions for calculating scattering functions of materials, as averaged over a list of Extended ASE Atoms objects.

from vitrum.scattering import scattering
scattering_funcs = scattering(atoms)

To calculate the total neutron radial distribution function of a material, the following line can be used:

G_r = scattering_funcs.get_total_rdf(type="neutron")

Diffusion analysis

The diffusion class contains functions for calculating diffusion properties of materials, as averaged over a list of ASE Atoms objects.

from vitrum.scattering import diffusion
diffusion_funcs = diffusion(atoms, sample_times = timesteps)

To calculate the mean squared displacement of a material, the following line can be used:

msd = diffusion_funcs.get_mean_square_displacements()

To get the timesteps at which the mean squared displacement was calculated, one of the utility functions can be used:

from vitrum.utility import get_LAMMPS_dump_timesteps
timesteps = get_LAMMPS_dump_timesteps('md.lammpstrj')

The diffusion class assumes that trajectories are unwrapped, and not wrapped according to PBC. To unwrap a trajectory one of the utility functions can be used:

from vitrum.utility import unwrap_trajectory
atoms = unwrap_trajectory(atoms)