A third blind test of crystal structure prediction

Crystal Polymorph Search in the NPT Ensemble via a Deposition/Sublimation Alchemical Path

The formulation of active pharmaceutical ingredients involves discovering stable crystal packing arrangements or polymorphs, each of which has distinct pharmaceutically relevant properties. Traditional experimental screening techniques utilizing various conditions are commonly supplemented with in silico crystal structure prediction (CSP) to inform the crystallization process and mitigate risk. Predictions are often based on advanced classical force fields or quantum mechanical calculations that model the crystal potential energy landscape but do not fully incorporate temperature, pressure, or solution conditions during the search procedure. This study proposes an innovative alchemical path that utilizes an advanced polarizable atomic multipole force field to predict crystal structures based on direct sampling of the NPT ensemble. The use of alchemical (i.e., nonphysical) intermediates, a novel Monte Carlo barostat, and an orthogonal space tempering bias combine to enhance the sampling efficiency of the deposition/sublimation phase transition. The proposed algorithm was applied to 2-((4-(2-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)ethyl)phenyl)amino)benzoic acid (Cambridge Crystallography Database Centre ID: XAFPAY) as a case study to showcase the algorithm. Each experimentally determined polymorph with one molecule in the asymmetric unit was successfully reproduced via approximately 1000 short 1 ns simulations per space group where each simulation was initiated from random rigid body coordinates and unit cell parameters. Utilizing two threads of a recent Intel CPU (a Xeon Gold 6330 CPU at 2.00 GHz), 1 ns of sampling using the polarizable AMOEBA force field can be acquired in 4 h (equating to more than 300 ns/day using all 112 threads/56 cores of a dual CPU node) within the Force Field X software (https://ffx.biochem.uiowa.edu). These results demonstrate a step forward in the rigorous use of the NPT ensemble during the CSP search process and open the door to future algorithms that incorporate solution conditions using continuum solvation methods.

Machine-Learned Potentials by Active Learning from Organic Crystal Structure Prediction Landscapes

A primary challenge in organic molecular crystal structure prediction (CSP) is accurately ranking the energies of potential structures. While high-level solid-state density functional theory (DFT) methods allow for mostly reliable discrimination of the low-energy structures, their high computational cost is problematic because of the need to evaluate tens to hundreds of thousands of trial crystal structures to fully explore typical crystal energy landscapes. Consequently, lower-cost but less accurate empirical force fields are often used, sometimes as the first stage of a hierarchical scheme involving multiple stages of increasingly accurate energy calculations. Machine-learned interatomic potentials (MLIPs), trained to reproduce the results of ab initio methods with computational costs close to those of force fields, can improve the efficiency of the CSP by reducing or eliminating the need for costly DFT calculations. Here, we investigate active learning methods for training MLIPs with CSP datasets. The combination of active learning with the well-developed sampling methods from CSP yields potentials in a highly automated workflow that are relevant over a wide range of the crystal packing space. To demonstrate these potentials, we illustrate efficiently reranking large, diverse crystal structure landscapes to near-DFT accuracy from force field-based CSP, improving the reliability of the final energy ranking. Furthermore, we demonstrate how these potentials can be extended to more accurately model structures far from lattice energy minima through additional on-the-fly training within Monte Carlo simulations.

Multimer Embedding Approach for Molecular Crystals up to Harmonic Vibrational Properties

Accurate calculations of molecular crystals are crucial for drug design and crystal engineering. However, periodic high-level density functional calculations using hybrid functionals are often prohibitively expensive for the relevant systems. These expensive periodic calculations can be circumvented by the usage of embedding methods in which, for instance, the periodic calculation is only performed at a lower-cost level and then monomer energies and dimer interactions are replaced by those of the higher-level method. Herein, we extend such a multimer embedding approach to enable energy corrections for trimer interactions and the calculation of harmonic vibrational properties up to the dimer level. We evaluate this approach for the X23 benchmark set of molecular crystals by approximating a periodic hybrid density functional (PBE0+MBD) by embedding multimers into less expensive calculations using a generalized-gradient approximation functional (PBE+MBD). We show that trimer interactions are crucial for accurately approximating lattice energies within 1 kJ/mol and might also be needed for further improvement of lattice constants and hence cell volumes. Finally, the vibrational properties are already very well captured at the monomer and dimer level, making it possible to approximate vibrational free energies at room temperature within 1 kJ/mol.

Accelerated Organic Crystal Structure Prediction with Genetic Algorithms and Machine Learning

We present a high-throughput, end-to-end pipeline for organic crystal structure prediction (CSP)─the problem of identifying the stable crystal structures that will form from a given molecule based only on its molecular composition. Our tool uses neural network potentials to allow for efficient screening and structural relaxation of generated crystal candidates. Our pipeline consists of two distinct stages: random search, whereby crystal candidates are randomly generated and screened, and optimization, where a genetic algorithm (GA) optimizes this screened population. We assess the performance of each stage of our pipeline on 21 molecules taken from the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre's CSP blind tests. We show that random search alone yields matches for ≈50% of targets. We then validate the potential of our full pipeline, making use of the GA to optimize the root-mean-square deviation between crystal candidates and the experimentally derived structure. With this approach, we are able to find matches for ≈80% of candidates with 10-100 times smaller initial population sizes than when using random search. Lastly, we run our full pipeline with an ANI model that is trained on a small data set of molecules extracted from crystal structures in the Cambridge Structural Database, generating ≈60% of targets. By leveraging machine learning models trained to predict energies at the density functional theory level, our pipeline has the potential to approach the accuracy of ab initio methods and the efficiency of empirical force fields.

Frontiers of molecular crystal structure prediction for pharmaceuticals and functional organic materials

The reliability of organic molecular crystal structure prediction has improved tremendously in recent years. Crystal structure predictions for small, mostly rigid molecules are quickly becoming routine. Structure predictions for larger, highly flexible molecules are more challenging, but their crystal structures can also now be predicted with increasing rates of success. These advances are ushering in a new era where crystal structure prediction drives the experimental discovery of new solid forms. After briefly discussing the computational methods that enable successful crystal structure prediction, this perspective presents case studies from the literature that demonstrate how state-of-the-art crystal structure prediction can transform how scientists approach problems involving the organic solid state. Applications to pharmaceuticals, porous organic materials, photomechanical crystals, organic semi-conductors, and nuclear magnetic resonance crystallography are included. Finally, efforts to improve our understanding of which predicted crystal structures can actually be produced experimentally and other outstanding challenges are discussed.

Hybrid classical/machine-learning force fields for the accurate description of molecular condensed-phase systems

Electronic structure methods offer in principle accurate predictions of molecular properties, however, their applicability is limited by computational costs. Empirical methods are cheaper, but come with inherent approximations and are dependent on the quality and quantity of training data. The rise of machine learning (ML) force fields (FFs) exacerbates limitations related to training data even further, especially for condensed-phase systems for which the generation of large and high-quality training datasets is difficult. Here, we propose a hybrid ML/classical FF model that is parametrized exclusively on high-quality ab initio data of dimers and monomers in vacuum but is transferable to condensed-phase systems. The proposed hybrid model combines our previous ML-parametrized classical model with ML corrections for situations where classical approximations break down, thus combining the robustness and efficiency of classical FFs with the flexibility of ML. Extensive validation on benchmarking datasets and experimental condensed-phase data, including organic liquids and small-molecule crystal structures, showcases how the proposed approach may promote FF development and unlock the full potential of classical FFs.

Application of the FFLUX Force Field to Molecular Crystals: A Study of Formamide

In this work, we present the first application of the quantum chemical topology force field FFLUX to the solid state. FFLUX utilizes Gaussian process regression machine learning models trained on data from the interacting quantum atom partitioning scheme to predict atomic energies and flexible multipole moments that change with geometry. Here, the ambient (α) and high-pressure (β) polymorphs of formamide are used as test systems and optimized using FFLUX. Optimizing the structures with increasing multipolar ranks indicates that the lattice parameters of the α phase differ by less than 5% to the experimental structure when multipole moments up to the quadrupole are used. These differences are found to be in line with the dispersion-corrected density functional theory. Lattice dynamics calculations are also found to be possible using FFLUX, yielding harmonic phonon spectra comparable to dispersion-corrected DFT while enabling larger supercells to be considered than is typically possible with first-principles calculations. These promising results indicate that FFLUX can be used to accurately determine properties of molecular solids that are difficult to access using DFT, including the structural dynamics, free energies, and properties at finite temperature.

Ab Initio Crystal Structure Prediction of the Energetic Materials LLM-105, RDX, and HMX

Crystal structure prediction (CSP) is performed for the energetic materials (EMs) LLM-105 and α-RDX, as well as the α and β conformational polymorphs of 1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetraazacyclooctane (HMX), using the genetic algorithm (GA) code, GAtor, and its associated random structure generator, Genarris. Genarris and GAtor successfully generate the experimental structures of all targets. GAtor's symmetric crossover scheme, where the space group symmetries of parent structures are treated as genes inherited by offspring, is found to be particularly effective. However, conducting several GA runs with different settings is still important for achieving diverse samplings of the potential energy surface. For LLM-105 and α-RDX, the experimental structure is ranked as the most stable, with all of the dispersion-inclusive density functional theory (DFT) methods used here. For HMX, the α form was persistently ranked as more stable than the β form, in contrast to experimental observations, even when correcting for vibrational contributions and thermal expansion. This may be attributed to insufficient accuracy of dispersion-inclusive DFT methods or to kinetic effects not considered here. In general, the ranking of some putative structures is found to be sensitive to the choice of the DFT functional and the dispersion method. For LLM-105, GAtor generates a putative structure with a layered packing motif, which is desirable thanks to its correlation with low sensitivity. Our results demonstrate that CSP is a useful tool for studying the ubiquitous polymorphism of EMs and shows promise of becoming an integral part of the EM development pipeline.

XDM-corrected hybrid DFT with numerical atomic orbitals predicts molecular crystal lattice energies with unprecedented accuracy

Molecular crystals are important for many applications, including energetic materials, organic semiconductors, and the development and commercialization of pharmaceuticals. The exchange-hole dipole moment (XDM) dispersion model has shown good performance in the calculation of relative and absolute lattice energies of molecular crystals, although it has traditionally been applied in combination with plane-wave/pseudopotential approaches. This has limited XDM to use with semilocal functional approximations, which suffer from delocalization error and poor quality conformational energies, and to systems with a few hundreds of atoms at most due to unfavorable scaling. In this work, we combine XDM with numerical atomic orbitals, which enable the efficient use of XDM-corrected hybrid functionals for molecular crystals. We test the new XDM-corrected functionals for their ability to predict the lattice energies of molecular crystals for the X23 set and 13 ice phases, the latter being a particularly stringent test. A composite approach using a XDM-corrected, 25% hybrid functional based on B86bPBE achieves a mean absolute error of 0.48 kcal mol^-1 per molecule for the X23 set and 0.19 kcal mol^-1 for the total lattice energies of the ice phases, compared to recent diffusion Monte-Carlo data. These results make the new XDM-corrected hybrids not only far more computationally efficient than previous XDM implementations, but also the most accurate density-functional methods for molecular crystal lattice energies to date.

Polymorphism of Purpurin and Low-level Detection of the Noncentrosymmetric form by Second Harmonic Generation Microscopy

Nonlinear optical imaging based on second harmonic generation (SHG) provides rapid and highly selective detection of polar crystals. Purpurin (PUR) is a natural product with multiple pharmacological activities. Two polymorphs of PUR show distinct crystal packing and structural symmetry, where form I crystallizes in a polar space group and form II crystallizes in a centrosymmetric crystal structure. The two polymorphs are monotropically related, with form I being the thermodynamically stable form, as suggested by slurry experiments, in-situ Raman spectroscopy and crystal structure prediction (CSP). The specificity of SHG to the polar crystals of form I allows rapid polymorphism detection at the limit of individual crystals. SHG is also able to detect low levels of form I in a tablet matrix dominated by amorphous excipients. This study shows that SHG microscopy can achieve the rapid and sensitive detection of noncentrosymmetric crystals in solid dosage forms, which is especially helpful for the early detection of unwanted polymorphic conversion or crystallization of amorphous drugs in formulations and final products.

Minimal Basis Set Hartree-Fock Corrected with Atom-Centered Potentials for Molecular Crystal Modeling and Crystal Structure Prediction

Crystal structure prediction (CSP), determining the experimentally observable structure of a molecular crystal from the molecular diagram, is an important challenge with technologically relevant applications in materials manufacturing and drug design. For the purpose of screening the randomly generated candidate crystal structures, CSP protocols require energy ranking methods that are fast and can accurately capture the small energy differences between molecular crystals. In addition, a good ranking method should also produce accurate equilibrium geometries, both intramolecular and intermolecular. In this article, we explore the combination of minimal-basis-set Hartree-Fock (HF) with atom-centered potentials (ACPs) as a method for modeling the structure and energetics of molecular crystals. The ACPs are developed for the H, C, N, and O atoms and fitted to a set of reference data at the B86bPBE-XDM level in order to mitigate basis-set incompleteness and missing correlation. In particular, ACPs are developed in combination with two methods: HF-D3/MINIs and HF-3c. The application of ACPs greatly improves the performance of HF-D3/MINIs for lattice energies, crystal energy differences, energy-volume and energy-strain relations, and crystal geometries. In the case of HF-3c, the improvement in the crystal energy differences is much smaller than in HF-D3/MINIs, but lattice energies and particularly crystal geometries are considerably better when ACPs are used. The resulting methods may be useful for CSP but also for quick calculation of molecular crystal lattice energies and geometries.

Efficient Crystal Structure Prediction for Structurally Related Molecules with Accurate and Transferable Tailor-Made Force Fields

Crystal structure prediction (CSP) his generally used to complement experimental solid form screening and applied to individual molecules in drug development. The fast development of algorithms and computing resources offers the opportunity to use CSP earlier and for a broader range of applications in the drug design cycle. This study presents a novel paradigm of CSP specifically designed for structurally related molecules, referred to as Quick-CSP. The approach prioritizes more accurate physics through robust and transferable tailor-made force fields (TMFFs), such that significant efficiency gains are achieved through the reduction of expensive ab initio calculations. The accuracy of the TMFF is increased by the introduction of electrostatic multipoles, and the fragment-based force field parameterization scheme is demonstrated to be transferable for a family of chemically related molecules. The protocol is benchmarked with structurally related compounds from the Bromodomain and Extraterminal (BET) domain inhibitors series. A new convergence criterion is introduced that aims at performing only as many ab initio optimizations of crystal structures as required to locate the bottom of the crystal energy landscape within a user-defined accuracy. The overall approach provides significant cost savings ranging from three- to eight-fold less than the full-CSP workflow. The reported advancements expand the scope and utility of the underlying CSP building blocks as well as their novel reassembly to other applications earlier in the drug design cycle to guide molecule design and selection.

Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Algorithms to Crystallization

Artificial intelligence and specifically machine learning applications are nowadays used in a variety of scientific applications and cutting-edge technologies, where they have a transformative impact. Such an assembly of statistical and linear algebra methods making use of large data sets is becoming more and more integrated into chemistry and crystallization research workflows. This review aims to present, for the first time, a holistic overview of machine learning and cheminformatics applications as a novel, powerful means to accelerate the discovery of new crystal structures, predict key properties of organic crystalline materials, simulate, understand, and control the dynamics of complex crystallization process systems, as well as contribute to high throughput automation of chemical process development involving crystalline materials. We critically review the advances in these new, rapidly emerging research areas, raising awareness in issues such as the bridging of machine learning models with first-principles mechanistic models, data set size, structure, and quality, as well as the selection of appropriate descriptors. At the same time, we propose future research at the interface of applied mathematics, chemistry, and crystallography. Overall, this review aims to increase the adoption of such methods and tools by chemists and scientists across industry and academia.

Reliable crystal structure predictions from first principles

An inexpensive and reliable method for molecular crystal structure predictions (CSPs) has been developed. The new CSP protocol starts from a two-dimensional graph of crystal’s monomer(s) and utilizes no experimental information. Using results of quantum mechanical calculations for molecular dimers, an accurate two-body, rigid-monomer ab initio-based force field (aiFF) for the crystal is developed. Since CSPs with aiFFs are essentially as expensive as with empirical FFs, tens of thousands of plausible polymorphs generated by the crystal packing procedures can be optimized. Here we show the robustness of this protocol which found the experimental crystal within the 20 most stable predicted polymorphs for each of the 15 investigated molecules. The ranking was further refined by performing periodic density-functional theory (DFT) plus dispersion correction (pDFT+D) calculations for these 20 top-ranked polymorphs, resulting in the experimental crystal ranked as number one for all the systems studied (and the second polymorph, if known, ranked in the top few). Alternatively, the polymorphs generated can be used to improve aiFFs, which also leads to rank one predictions. The proposed CSP protocol should result in aiFFs replacing empirical FFs in CSP research.

Developing theoretical frameworks to predict new polymorphs is highly desirable. Here the authors present an ab initio based force-field approach for crystal structure prediction offering a dramatic computational speed-up over fully ab initio schemes.

The interplay of intra- and intermolecular errors in modeling conformational polymorphs

Conformational polymorphs of organic molecular crystals represent a challenging test for quantum chemistry because they require careful balancing of the intra- and intermolecular interactions. This study examines 54 molecular conformations from 20 sets of conformational polymorphs, along with the relative lattice energies and 173 dimer interactions taken from six of the polymorph sets. These systems are studied with a variety of van der Waals-inclusive density functionals theory models; dispersion-corrected spin-component-scaled second-order Møller–Plesset perturbation theory (SCS-MP2D); and domain local pair natural orbital coupled cluster singles, doubles, and perturbative triples [DLPNO-CCSD(T)]. We investigate how delocalization error in conventional density functionals impacts monomer conformational energies, systematic errors in the intermolecular interactions, and the nature of error cancellation that occurs in the overall crystal. The density functionals B86bPBE-XDM, PBE-D4, PBE-MBD, PBE0-D4, and PBE0-MBD are found to exhibit sizable one-body and two-body errors vs DLPNO-CCSD(T) benchmarks, and the level of success in predicting the relative polymorph energies relies heavily on error cancellation between different types of intermolecular interactions or between intra- and intermolecular interactions. The SCS-MP2D and, to a lesser extent, ωB97M-V models exhibit smaller errors and rely less on error cancellation. Implications for crystal structure prediction of flexible compounds are discussed. Finally, the one-body and two-body DLPNO-CCSD(T) energies taken from these conformational polymorphs establish the CP1b and CP2b benchmark datasets that could be useful for testing quantum chemistry models in challenging real-world systems with complex interplay between intra- and intermolecular interactions, a number of which are significantly impacted by delocalization error.

Exploration of conjugated π-bridge units in N,N-bis(4-methoxyphenyl)naphthalen-2-amine derivative-based hole transporting materials for perovskite solar cell applications: a DFT and experimental investigation

Organic small molecules as hole-transporting materials (HTMs) are an important part of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). On basis of the arylamine-based HTM (e.g. H101), two N,N-bis(4-methoxyphenyl)naphthalen-2-amine derivative-based HTMs (CP1 and CP2) with different conjugated π-bridge cores of fused aromatic ring are designed. The CP1 and CP2 were investigated by DFT and TD-DFT in combination with Marcus theory. The calculated results indicate that the designed CP1 and CP2 have better properties with good stability and high hole mobility compared with the parent H101. To validate the computational model for the screening of N,N-bis(4-methoxyphenyl)naphthalen-2-amine derivative-based HTMs, the promising CP1 and CP2 were synthesized and applied to PSC devices. The results show that the experimental data used in this paper can reproduce the theoretical results, such as frontier molecular orbital energies, optical properties and hole mobility, very well. Among them, the results show that the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the H101-based PSC device is 14.78%, while the CP1-based PSC shows a better PCE of 15.91%, due to its high hole mobility and uniform smooth film morphology, which ultimately promoted a higher fill factor. Finally, this work shows that the computational model is a feasible way to obtain potential N,N-bis(4-methoxyphenyl)naphthalen-2-amine derivative-based HTMs.

DFT and experimental investigation was used for the material design on the core engineering in N,N-bis(4-methoxyphenyl)naphthalen-2-amine derivative-based hole transporting materials for perovskite solar cell applications.

Crystal Structure Prediction for Benzene Using Basin-Hopping Global Optimization

Organic molecules can be stable in distinct crystalline forms, known as polymorphs, which have significant consequences for industrial applications. Here, we predict the polymorphs of crystalline benzene computationally for an accurate anisotropic model parametrized to reproduce electronic structure calculations. We adapt the basin-hopping global optimization procedure to the case of crystalline unit cells, simultaneously optimizing the molecular coordinates and unit cell parameters to locate multiple low-energy structures from a variety of crystal space groups. We rapidly locate all the well-established experimental polymorphs of benzene, each of which corresponds to a single local energy minimum of the model. Our results show that basin-hopping can be both an efficient and effective tool for polymorphic crystal structure prediction, requiring no a priori experimental knowledge of cell parameters or symmetry.

Crystal structure prediction of energetic materials and a twisted arene with Genarris and GAtor

A molecular crystal structure prediction workflow, based on the random structure generator, Genarris, and the genetic algorithm (GA), GAtor, is successfully applied to two energetic materials and a chiral arene.

Improved quantitative crystal-structure comparison using powder diffractograms via anisotropic volume correction

A new anisotropic volume correction improves quantitative crystal structure comparison. Benchmarking against the 6th crystal structure prediction blind test data results in identification of two previously uncredited matching structures.

Fast analytical evaluation of intermolecular electrostatic interaction energies using the pseudoatom representation of the electron density. III. Application to crystal structures via the Ewald and direct summation methods

The previously reported exact potential and multipole moment (EP/MM) method for fast and accurate evaluation of the intermolecular electrostatic interaction energies using the pseudoatom representation of the electron density [Volkov, Koritsanszky & Coppens (2004). Chem. Phys. Lett. 391, 170-175; Nguyen, Kisiel & Volkov (2018). Acta Cryst. A74, 524-536; Nguyen & Volkov (2019). Acta Cryst. A75, 448-464] is extended to the calculation of electrostatic interaction energies in molecular crystals using two newly developed implementations: (i) the Ewald summation (ES), which includes interactions up to the hexadecapolar level and the EP correction to account for short-range electron-density penetration effects, and (ii) the enhanced EP/MM-based direct summation (DS), which at sufficiently large intermolecular separations replaces the atomic multipole moment approximation to the electrostatic energy with that based on the molecular multipole moments. As in the previous study [Nguyen, Kisiel & Volkov (2018). Acta Cryst. A74, 524-536], the EP electron repulsion integral is evaluated analytically using the Löwdin α-function approach. The resulting techniques, incorporated in the XDPROP module of the software package XD2016, have been tested on several small-molecule crystal systems (benzene, L-dopa, paracetamol, amino acids etc.) and the crystal structure of a 181-atom decapeptide molecule (Z = 4) using electron densities constructed via the University at Buffalo Aspherical Pseudoatom Databank [Volkov, Li, Koritsanszky & Coppens (2004). J. Phys. Chem. A, 108, 4283-4300]. Using a 2015 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon E3-1505M v5 computer processor, a 64-bit implementation of the Löwdin α-function and one of the higher optimization levels in the GNU Fortran compiler, the ES method evaluates the electrostatic interaction energy with a numerical precision of at least 10^-5 kJ mol^-1 in under 6 s for any of the tested small-molecule crystal structures, and in 48.5 s for the decapeptide structure. The DS approach is competitive in terms of precision and speed with the ES technique only for crystal structures of small molecules that do not carry a large molecular dipole moment. The electron-density penetration effects, correctly accounted for by the two described methods, contribute 28-64% to the total electrostatic interaction energy in the examined systems, and thus cannot be neglected.

Disappearing disorder

Disorder in crystal structures can disappear, depending on the circumstances, as shown by multi-temperature measurements, aspherical-atom refinement and computational analyses.

High throughput scanning of dimer interactions to facilitate confirmation of the molecular stacking mode: a case of 1,3,5-trinitrobenzene and its amino-derivatives

Exactly predicting the packing structures of a given molecule is a crucial topic in crystal engineering, while it remains still challenging, as it requires huge calculations, largely above common computation cost and time limitations. However, current progress in high throughput calculations makes the fast screening of structures and properties feasible. In the present work, we exemplify this by considering a special case of ascertainment of the molecular stacking mode and shear properties of energetic materials. Four energetic π-bonded molecules, 1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, 2,4,6-trinitroaniline, 1,3-diamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene and 2,4,6-triamino-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, with a different number of H atoms replaced by amino groups, are adopted as samples to scan the potential energy surfaces (PESs) of dimers through high throughput calculations. It is found that the parallel stacking mode is the most energetically favored, followed by the T-shaped, coplanar and crossing ones. Such an energetically favored stacking mode is observed in all related π-stacked crystal structures at ambient conditions or low temperatures. It shows that the stacking mode can be ascertained through the PES scanning of dimers, and thereby, the stacking structures and properties related to the stacking mode, like mechanical anisotropism, can be quickly screened by means of high throughput calculations.

Optimizing electron-rich arylamine derivatives in thiophene-fused derivatives as π bridge-based hole transporting materials for perovskite solar cells

Based on the observations of thienothiophene derivatives as π-bridged small molecule hole transporting materials (HTMs), adjusting their electron-rich arylamine derivatives is an effective approach to obtain the alternative HTMs for perovskite solar cells (PSCs). In this work, starting from a new electron-rich arylamine derivative and different π-bridged units of thienothiophene derivatives, a series of arylamine derivative-based HTMs were designed, and their properties were investigated using density functional theory combined with the Marcus charge transfer theory. Compared with the parental Z26 material, the designed H01–H04 exhibit appropriate frontier molecular orbitals, good optical properties, better solubility, good stability and higher hole mobilities. H01–H04 materials with high hole mobility (∼× 10⁻²) can serve as promising HTMs for improving the efficiency of PSCs. The results confirm that the design strategy of adjusting the electron-rich arylamine derivatives in thienothiophene derivatives as π-bridged HTMs is a reliable approach to obtain the promising HTMs for PSC applications.

A strategy to optimize the electron acceptors of π-bridged units in small-molecule arylamine derivative-based molecules for improving the performances of perovskite solar cells was provided.

A Million Crystal Structures: The Whole Is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts

The founding in 1965 of what is now called the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) has reaped dividends in numerous and diverse areas of chemical research. Each of the million or so crystal structures in the database was solved for its own particular reason, but collected together, the structures can be reused to address a multitude of new problems. In this Review, which is focused mainly on the last 10 years, we chronicle the contribution of the CSD to research into molecular geometries, molecular interactions, and molecular assemblies and demonstrate its value in the design of biologically active molecules and the solid forms in which they are delivered. Its potential in other commercially relevant areas is described, including gas storage and delivery, thin films, and (opto)electronics. The CSD also aids the solution of new crystal structures. Because no scientific instrument is without shortcomings, the limitations of CSD research are assessed. We emphasize the importance of maintaining database quality: notwithstanding the arrival of big data and machine learning, it remains perilous to ignore the principle of garbage in, garbage out. Finally, we explain why the CSD must evolve with the world around it to ensure it remains fit for purpose in the years ahead.

Exploring the electrochemical properties of hole transporting materials from first-principles calculations: an efficient strategy to improve the performance of perovskite solar cells

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have been achieved with impressively dynamic improvement in power conversion efficiency (PCE), becoming the hottest topic in photovoltaics. One of the hot topics is to develop inexpensive and efficient hole transporting materials (HTMs). In the present work, we systematically investigated the impact of different atoms in the heteromerous structure on the performance of perovskite solar cells. In addition, the influence of the structural modification of the HTM molecular building blocks was also revealed. To further understand the relationship between the charge-transport properties and the structural modification, the electronic properties, reorganization energy, and hole transporting properties of a series of organic hole transporting materials were investigated using first-principles calculations combined with Marcus theory. Moreover, the orientation function μ_Φ (V, λ, r, θ, γ; Φ) was applied to quantitatively evaluate the overall carrier mobility of HTMs in PSCs. It is revealed that this model predicts the hole mobility of HTMs correctly. The calculated results indicate that hole transporting materials with heteroatoms and larger dimensional structures show higher hole mobility, which may significantly improve the photovoltaic performance of PSCs.

Challenges in the use of atomistic simulations to predict solubilities of drug-like molecules

Background: Solubility is a physical property of high importance to the pharmaceutical industry, the prediction of which for potential drugs has so far been a hard task. We attempted to predict the solubility of acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) by estimating the absolute chemical potentials of its most stable polymorph and of solutions with different concentrations of the drug molecule. Methods: Chemical potentials were estimated from all-atom molecular dynamics simulations.  We used the Einstein molecule method (EMM) to predict the absolute chemical potential of the solid and solvation free energy calculations to predict the excess chemical potentials of the liquid-phase systems. Results: Reliable estimations of the chemical potentials for the solid and for a single ASA molecule using the EMM required an extremely large number of intermediate states for the free energy calculations, meaning that the calculations were extremely demanding computationally. Despite the computational cost, however, the computed value did not agree well with the experimental value, potentially due to limitations with the underlying energy model. Perhaps better values could be obtained with a better energy model; however, it seems likely computational cost may remain a limiting factor for use of this particular approach to solubility estimation.    Conclusions: Solubility prediction of drug-like solids remains computationally challenging, and it appears that both the underlying energy model and the computational approach applied may need improvement before the approach is suitable for routine use.

Revised values for the X23 benchmark set of molecular crystals

A revised reference value set for molecular crystals: X23b; new cell volumes and lattice energies including volumetric expansion due to zero-point energy and thermal effects.

A jumping crystal predicted with molecular dynamics and analysed with TLS refinement against powder diffraction data

By running a temperature series of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations starting from the known low-temperature phase, the experimentally observed phase transition in a 'jumping crystal' was captured, thereby providing a prediction of the unknown crystal structure of the high-temperature phase and clarifying the phase-transition mechanism. The phase transition is accompanied by a discontinuity in two of the unit-cell parameters. The structure of the high-temperature phase is very similar to that of the low-temperature phase. The anisotropic displacement parameters calculated from the MD simulations readily identified libration as the driving force behind the phase transition. Both the predicted crystal structure and the phase-transition mechanism were verified experimentally using TLS (translation, libration, screw) refinement against X-ray powder diffraction data.

Accuracy and reproducibility in crystal structure prediction: the curious case of ROY

Because of excessive electron delocalization, the polymorphs of ROY constitute a surprisingly challenging system for crystal structure prediction.

Crystal Structure Prediction of Magnetic Transition-Metal Oxides by Using Evolutionary Algorithm and Hybrid DFT Methods

Although numerous crystal structures have been successfully predicted by using currently available computational techniques, prediction of strongly correlated systems such as transition-metal oxides remains a challenge. To overcome this problem, we have interfaced evolutionary algorithm-based USPEX method with the CRYSTAL code, enabling the use of Gaussian-type localized atomic basis sets and hybrid density functional (DFT) methods for the prediction of crystal structures. We report successful crystal structure predictions of several transition-metal oxides (NiO, CoO, α-Fe2O3, V2O3, and CuO) with correct atomic magnetic moments, spin configurations, and structures by using the USPEX method in combination with the CRYSTAL code and Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE0) hybrid functional. Our benchmarking results demonstrate that USPEX + hybrid DFT is a suitable combination to reliably predict the magnetic structures of strongly correlated materials.

Thermal Gradient Approach for the Quasi-harmonic Approximation and Its Application to Improved Treatment of Anisotropic Expansion

We present a novel approach to efficiently implement thermal expansion in the quasi-harmonic approximation (QHA) for both isotropic and more importantly, anisotropic expansion. In this approach, we rapidly determine a crystal's equilibrium volume and shape at a given temperature by integrating along the gradient of expansion from 0 Kelvin up to the desired temperature. We compare our approach to previous isotropic methods that rely on a brute-force grid search to determine the free energy minimum, which is infeasible to carry out for anisotropic expansion, as well as quasi-anisotropic approaches that take into account the contributions to anisotropic expansion from the lattice energy. We compare these methods for experimentally known polymorphs of piracetam and resorcinol and show that both isotropic methods agree to within error up to 300 K. Using the Grüneisen parameter causes up to 0.04 kcal/mol deviation in the Gibbs free energy, but for polymorph free energy differences there is a cancellation in error with all isotropic methods within 0.025 kcal/mol at 300 K. Anisotropic expansion allows the crystals to relax into lattice geometries 0.01-0.23 kcal/mol lower in energy at 300 K relative to isotropic expansion. For polymorph free energy differences all QHA methods produced results within 0.02 kcal/mol of each other for resorcinol and 0.12 kcal/mol for piracetam, the two molecules tested here, demonstrating a cancellation of error for isotropic methods. We also find that with expansion in more than a single volume variable, there is a non-negligible rate of failure of the basic approximations of QHA. Specifically, while expanding into new harmonic modes as the box vectors are increased, the system often falls into alternate, structurally distinct harmonic modes unrelated by continuous deformation from the original harmonic mode.

Repulsion-dispersion parameters for the modelling of organic molecular crystals containing N, O, S and Cl

In lattice energy models that combine ab initio and empirical components, it is important to ensure consistency between these components so that meaningful quantitative results are obtained. A method for deriving parameters of atom-atom repulsion dispersion potentials for crystals, tailored to different ab initio models, is presented. It is based on minimization of the sum of squared deviations between experimental and calculated structures and energies. The solution algorithm is designed to avoid convergence to local minima in the parameter space by combining a deterministic low-discrepancy sequence for the generation of multiple initial parameter guesses with an efficient local minimization algorithm. The proposed approach is applied to derive transferable exp-6 potential parameters suitable for use in conjunction with a distributed multipole electrostatics model derived from isolated molecule charge densities calculated at the M06/6-31G(d,p) level of theory. Data for hydrocarbons, azahydrocarbons, oxohydrocarbons, organosulphur compounds and chlorohydrocarbons are used for the estimation. A good fit is achieved for the new set of parameters with a mean absolute error in sublimation enthalpies of 4.1 kJ mol-1 and an average rmsd15 of 0.31 Å. The parameters are found to perform well on a separate cross-validation set of 39 compounds.

Energy-Structure-Function Maps: Cartography for Materials Discovery

Some of the most successful approaches to structural design in materials chemistry have exploited strong directional bonds, whose geometric reliability lends predictability to solid-state assembly. For example, metal-organic frameworks are an important design platform in materials chemistry. By contrast, the structure of molecular crystals is defined by a balance of weaker intermolecular forces, and small changes to the molecular building blocks can lead to large changes in crystal packing. Hence, empirical rules are inherently less reliable for engineering the structures of molecular solids. Energy-structure-function (ESF) maps are a new approach for the discovery of functional organic crystals. These maps fuse crystal-structure prediction with the computation of physical properties to allow researchers to choose the most promising molecule for a given application, prior to its synthesis. ESF maps were used recently to discover a highly porous molecular crystal that has a high methane deliverable capacity and the lowest density molecular crystal reported to date (r = 0.41 g cm^-3 , SA_BET = 3425 m² g^-1 ). Progress in this field is reviewed, with emphasis on the future opportunities and challenges for a design strategy based on computed ESF maps.

Genarris: Random generation of molecular crystal structures and fast screening with a Harris approximation

We present Genarris, a Python package that performs configuration space screening for molecular crystals of rigid molecules by random sampling with physical constraints. For fast energy evaluations, Genarris employs a Harris approximation, whereby the total density of a molecular crystal is constructed via superposition of single molecule densities. Dispersion-inclusive density functional theory is then used for the Harris density without performing a self-consistency cycle. Genarris uses machine learning for clustering, based on a relative coordinate descriptor developed specifically for molecular crystals, which is shown to be robust in identifying packing motif similarity. In addition to random structure generation, Genarris offers three workflows based on different sequences of successive clustering and selection steps: the "Rigorous" workflow is an exhaustive exploration of the potential energy landscape, the "Energy" workflow produces a set of low energy structures, and the "Diverse" workflow produces a maximally diverse set of structures. The latter is recommended for generating initial populations for genetic algorithms. Here, the implementation of Genarris is reported and its application is demonstrated for three test cases.

DNP-enhanced solid-state NMR spectroscopy of active pharmaceutical ingredients

Solid-state NMR spectroscopy has become a valuable tool for the characterization of both pure and formulated active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). However, NMR generally suffers from poor sensitivity that often restricts NMR experiments to nuclei with favorable properties, concentrated samples, and acquisition of one-dimensional (1D) NMR spectra. Here, we review how dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) can be applied to routinely enhance the sensitivity of solid-state NMR experiments by one to two orders of magnitude for both pure and formulated APIs. Sample preparation protocols for relayed DNP experiments and experiments on directly doped APIs are detailed. Numerical spin diffusion models illustrate the dependence of relayed DNP enhancements on the relaxation properties and particle size of the solids and can be used for particle size determination when the other factors are known. We then describe the advanced solid-state NMR experiments that have been enabled by DNP and how they provide unique insight into the molecular and macroscopic structure of APIs. For example, with large sensitivity gains provided by DNP, natural isotopic abundance, ¹³ C-¹³ C double-quantum single-quantum homonuclear correlation NMR spectra of pure APIs can be routinely acquired. DNP also enables solid-state NMR experiments with unreceptive quadrupolar nuclei such as ² H, ¹⁴ N, and ³⁵ Cl that are commonly found in APIs. Applications of DNP-enhanced solid-state NMR spectroscopy for the molecular level characterization of low API load formulations such as commercial tablets and amorphous solid dispersions are described. Future perspectives for DNP-enhanced solid-state NMR experiments on APIs are briefly discussed.

Composite and Low-Cost Approaches for Molecular Crystal Structure Prediction

Molecular crystal structure prediction (CSP) requires evaluating differences in lattice energy between candidate crystal structures accurately and efficiently. In this work, we explore and compare several low-cost alternatives to dispersion-corrected density-functional theory (DFT) in the plane-waves/pseudopotential approximation, the most accurate and general approach used for CSP at present. Three types of low-cost methods are considered: DFT with a small basis set of finite-support numerical orbitals (the SIESTA method), dispersion-corrected Gaussian small or minimal-basis-set Hartree-Fock and DFT with additional empirical corrections (HF-3c and PBEh-3c), and self-consistent-charge dispersion-corrected density-functional tight binding (SCC-DFTB3-D3). In addition, we study the performance of composite methods that comprise a geometry optimization using a low-cost approach followed by a single-point calculation using the accurate but comparatively expensive B86bPBE-XDM functional. All methods were tested for their abilities to produce absolute lattice energies, relative lattice energies, and crystal geometries. We show that assessing various methods by their ability to produce absolute lattice energies can be misleading and that relative lattice energies are a much better indicator of performance in CSP. The EE14 set of relative solubilities of homochiral and heterochiral chiral crystals is proposed for relative lattice-energy benchmarking. Our results show that PBE-D2 plus a DZP basis set of numerical orbitals coupled with a final B86bPBE-XDM single-point calculation gives excellent performance at a fraction of the cost of a full B86bPBE-XDM calculation, although the results are sensitive to the particular details of the computational protocol. The B86bPBE-XDM//PBE-D2/DZP method was subsequently tested in a practical CSP application from our recent work on the crystal structure of the enantiopure and racemate forms of 1-aza[6]helicene, a chiral organic semiconductor. Our results show that this multilevel method is able to correctly reproduce the energy ranking of both crystal forms.

GAtor: A First-Principles Genetic Algorithm for Molecular Crystal Structure Prediction

We present the implementation of GAtor, a massively parallel, first-principles genetic algorithm (GA) for molecular crystal structure prediction. GAtor is written in Python and currently interfaces with the FHI-aims code to perform local optimizations and energy evaluations using dispersion-inclusive density functional theory (DFT). GAtor offers a variety of fitness evaluation, selection, crossover, and mutation schemes. Breeding operators designed specifically for molecular crystals provide a balance between exploration and exploitation. Evolutionary niching is implemented in GAtor by using machine learning to cluster the dynamically updated population by structural similarity and then employing a cluster-based fitness function. Evolutionary niching promotes uniform sampling of the potential energy surface by evolving several subpopulations, which helps overcome initial pool biases and selection biases (genetic drift). The various settings offered by GAtor increase the likelihood of locating numerous low-energy minima, including those located in disconnected, hard to reach regions of the potential energy landscape. The best structures generated are re-relaxed and re-ranked using a hierarchy of increasingly accurate DFT functionals and dispersion methods. GAtor is applied to a chemically diverse set of four past blind test targets, characterized by different types of intermolecular interactions. The experimentally observed structures and other low-energy structures are found for all four targets. In particular, for Target II, 5-cyano-3-hydroxythiophene, the top ranked putative crystal structure is a Z' = 2 structure with P1̅ symmetry and a scaffold packing motif, which has not been reported previously.

Towards the systematic crystallisation of molecular ionic cocrystals: insights from computed crystal form landscapes

The underlying molecular and crystal properties affecting the crystallisation of organic molecular ionic cocrystals (ICCs) are investigated.

First-principles stability ranking of molecular crystal polymorphs with the DFT+MBD approach

The ability to accurately calculate the relative stabilities of numerous polymorphs of a given molecular crystal is crucial for the success of any molecular crystal structure prediction (CSP) approach. We have recently presented a hierarchical CSP procedure based on van-der-Waals-inclusive density functional theory [Hoja et al., 2018, arXiv:1803.07503], which yields excellent stability rankings for molecular crystals involving rigid molecules, salts, co-crystals, and highly polymorphic drug-like molecules. This approach includes many-body dispersion effects, exact exchange, as well as vibrational free energies. Here, we discuss in detail the impact of these effects on the obtained stability rankings. In addition, we assess the impact of the approximations used in our hierarchical procedure. We show that our procedure is generally robust to 1-2 kJ mol-1 for the systems in the latest CSP blind test but vibrational free energies for crystals involving flexible molecules would benefit from directly including many-body dispersion interactions. In addition, we also discuss the effect of temperature on the structure of molecular crystals and a simple but effective method for estimating anharmonic effects.

Exchange-Hole Dipole Dispersion Model for Accurate Energy Ranking in Molecular Crystal Structure Prediction II: Nonplanar Molecules

The crystal structure prediction (CSP) of a given compound from its molecular diagram is a fundamental challenge in computational chemistry with implications in relevant technological fields. A key component of CSP is the method to calculate the lattice energy of a crystal, which allows the ranking of candidate structures. This work is the second part of our investigation to assess the potential of the exchange-hole dipole moment (XDM) dispersion model for crystal structure prediction. In this article, we study the relatively large, nonplanar, mostly flexible molecules in the first five blind tests held by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. Four of the seven experimental structures are predicted as the energy minimum, and thermal effects are demonstrated to have a large impact on the ranking of at least another compound. As in the first part of this series, delocalization error affects the results for a single crystal (compound X), in this case by detrimentally overstabilizing the π-conjugated conformation of the monomer. Overall, B86bPBE-XDM correctly predicts 16 of the 21 compounds in the five blind tests, a result similar to the one obtained using the best CSP method available to date (dispersion-corrected PW91 by Neumann et al.). Perhaps more importantly, the systems for which B86bPBE-XDM fails to predict the experimental structure as the energy minimum are mostly the same as with Neumann's method, which suggests that similar difficulties (absence of vibrational free energy corrections, delocalization error,...) are not limited to B86bPBE-XDM but affect GGA-based DFT-methods in general. Our work confirms B86bPBE-XDM as an excellent option for crystal energy ranking in CSP and offers a guide to identify crystals (organic salts, conjugated flexible systems) where difficulties may appear.

Influence of π-bridge conjugation on the electrochemical properties within hole transporting materials for perovskite solar cells

Hole transporting materials (HTMs) play an important role in most efficient perovskite solar cells (PSCs). In particular, donor-π-bridge-donor type oligomers (D-π-D) have been explored extensively as alternative and economical HTMs. In the present work, a series of triphenylamine-based derivatives as alternatives to the expensive Spiro-OMeTAD were explored by using first-principles calculations combined with the Marcus theory. The electronic structures, optical properties and hole mobilities of all the molecules were investigated to reveal the relationship between their charge-transport properties and the π-bridge conjugation. The HOMO levels decrease with the extension of the π-bridge conjugation length, which may lead to higher open-circuit voltages. Moreover, we employed a quantum mechanical (QM) methodology to estimate the carrier mobility for organic crystals. Specifically, an orientation function μ_Φ (V, λ, r, θ, γ; Φ) is first applied to quantitatively evaluate the overall carrier mobility of HTMs in PSCs. The theoretically calculated results validate that this model predicts the hole mobility of HTMs correctly. More importantly, it is revealed that enhancing the π-bridge conjugation in HTMs can improve the hole mobility, which will definitely improve the performance of PSCs. We hope that our theoretical investigation will offer a reliable calculation method to estimate the charge-transport properties of novel HTMs applied in perovskite solar cells.

Charge Transport in Molecular Materials: An Assessment of Computational Methods

The booming field of molecular electronics has fostered a surge of computational research on electronic properties of organic molecular solids. In particular, with respect to a microscopic understanding of transport and loss mechanisms, theoretical studies assume an ever-increasing role. Owing to the tremendous diversity of organic molecular materials, a great number of computational methods have been put forward to suit every possible charge transport regime, material, and need for accuracy. With this review article we aim at providing a compendium of the available methods, their theoretical foundations, and their ranges of validity. We illustrate these through applications found in the literature. The focus is on methods available for organic molecular crystals, but mention is made wherever techniques are suitable for use in other related materials such as disordered or polymeric systems.

Exchange-Hole Dipole Dispersion Model for Accurate Energy Ranking in Molecular Crystal Structure Prediction

Accurate energy ranking is a key facet to the problem of first-principles crystal-structure prediction (CSP) of molecular crystals. This work presents a systematic assessment of B86bPBE-XDM, a semilocal density functional combined with the exchange-hole dipole moment (XDM) dispersion model, for energy ranking using 14 compounds from the first five CSP blind tests. Specifically, the set of crystals studied comprises 11 rigid, planar compounds and 3 co-crystals. The experimental structure was correctly identified as the lowest in lattice energy for 12 of the 14 total crystals. One of the exceptions is 4-hydroxythiophene-2-carbonitrile, for which the experimental structure was correctly identified once a quasi-harmonic estimate of the vibrational free-energy contribution was included, evidencing the occasional importance of thermal corrections for accurate energy ranking. The other exception is an organic salt, where charge-transfer error (also called delocalization error) is expected to cause the base density functional to be unreliable. Provided the choice of base density functional is appropriate and an estimate of temperature effects is used, XDM-corrected density-functional theory is highly reliable for the energetic ranking of competing crystal structures.

Application of computational methods to the design and characterisation of porous molecular materials

Composed from discrete units, porous molecular materials (PMMs) possess properties not observed for conventional, extended solids. Molecular simulations provide crucial understanding for the design and characterisation of these unique materials.