A discussion of many of the recently implemented features of GAMESS (General Atomic and Molecular Electronic Structure System) and LibCChem (the C++ CPU/GPU library associated with GAMESS) is presented. These features include fragmentation methods such as the fragment molecular orbital, effective fragment potential and effective fragment molecular orbital methods, hybrid MPI/OpenMP approaches to Hartree–Fock, and resolution of the identity second order perturbation theory. Many new coupled cluster theory methods have been implemented in GAMESS, as have multiple levels of density functional/tight binding theory. The role of accelerators, especially graphical processing units, is discussed in the context of the new features of LibCChem, as it is the associated problem of power consumption as the power of computers increases dramatically. The process by which a complex program suite such as GAMESS is maintained and developed is considered. Future developments are briefly summarized.

We present a single-determinant approach to three challenging topics in the chemistry of excited states: double excitations, charge-transfer states, and conical intersections. The results are obtained by using the Initial Maximum Overlap Method (IMOM) which is a modified version of the Maximum Overlap Method (MOM). The new algorithm converges better than the original, especially for these difficult problems. By considering several case studies, we show that a single-determinant framework provides a simple and accurate alternative for modeling excited states in cases where other low-cost methods, such as CIS and TD-DFT, either perform poorly or fail completely.

How many electrons are excited in an electronic transition? In this Letter, we introduce the excitation number η to answer this question when the initial and final states are each modeled by a single-determinant wave function. We show that calculated η values lie close to positive integers, leading to unambiguous assignments of the number of excited electrons. This contrasts with previous definitions of excitation quantities which can lead to mis-assignments. We consider several examples where η provides improved excited-state characterizations.

Hartree-Fock (HF) theory is most often applied to study the electronic ground states of molecular systems. However, with the advent of numerical techniques for locating higher solutions of the self-consistent field equations, it is now possible to examine the extent to which such mean-field solutions are useful approximations to electronic excited states. In this Communication, we use the maximum overlap method to locate 11 low-energy solutions of the HF equation for the H2 molecule and we find that, with only one exception, these yield surprisingly accurate models for the low-lying excited states of this molecule. This finding suggests that the HF solutions could be useful first-order approximations for correlated excited state wavefunctions.

The understanding of recombination of photogenerated electron/hole pairs at defect sites is a key enabler to develop bismuth vanadate (BiVO 4 ) photoanodes at scale and low cost for photoelectrochemical water splitting. Here, we report a systematic investigation of the impact of vanadium vacancies on the efficiency of BiVO 4 photoanodes for water photooxidation. X-ray photoelectron and photoluminescence spectroscopies reveal that the surfaces of nanostructured BiVO 4 photoanodes obtained by high-temperature synthesis, here used as the model system, suffer from vanadium deficiency and display an increased recombination rate of photoexcited electron/hole pairs. Our simulation indicates that these vanadium vacancies (V V ) create a new sub-band gap level in the proximity of the Fermi level of BiVO 4 . These levels act as recombination centers, explaining the subpar onset potentials and photocurrent densities for water photooxidation observed with these vanadium-deficient BiVO 4 photoanodes. We show that once the V V are eliminated, by a facile post-treatment of the BiVO 4 photoanodes, the photoluminescence lifetimes of the photogenerated carriers are significantly prolonged and the number of catalytically accessible sites is increased. As a result, the photocurrent during water oxidation is increased twofold, achieving 2 mA cm −2 against the standard hydrogen electrode in a 1 M potassium borate buffer electrolyte. These findings provide insights into the critical role played by the vanadium vacancies on the optoelectronic properties of BiVO 4 and a scalable approach for its effective fabrication on large-scale surfaces.