In several ongoing projects we need to analyze dynamical correlation functions on timescales from 100 ns to 1 µs via molecular dynamics simulations containing millions of atoms. These simulations generate trajectories that can reach many 100 GB in size. As a result, we require disk space considerably beyond the resources available to us via Small Storage projects, not only to run these simulations but to analyze them. Our workflow includes (1) generating trajectories and data, (2) analyzing these trajectories using in particular the dynasor package developed by us, and (3) removing the raw data. In other words, the purpose of this project is not to store data for longer time periods but rather to be able to turn over data on relatively short time scales.
## Perovskites
Halide and chalcogenides perovskites are promising for optoelectronic applications such as solar cells. Alloying is a common way to tune materials properties for specific applications. At the moment we are working on both alloying in the CsPb(Br,I,Cl)3 and BaZr(S,Se)3 systems. In order to simulate the phase diagrams of these systems one must span both the composition and temperature space, which requires thousands of trajectories each being about 1-10GB.
Additionally we are working on hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite based on MAPbI3 and FAPbI3. They exhibit very long timescale dynamics due to the slow rotational motion of the molecules, which requires very long simulations (100s of ns) leading to trajectories of 100-500GB.
Lastly, we plan to conduct a high-throughput study of the overdamped dynamics over a wide range of perovskite chemistries and compositions. Our plan is to include perovskites such as BaZrO3, BaZrS3, BaZrSe3, SrTiO3, CsBX3 with B=Pb, Sn, Ga and X=Br, Cl, I. Each of simulation will require about 1-10GB in intermediate storage.
## Surfactants in water
Surfactants such as cetrimonium bromide (CTAB) in contact with gold and silica surfaces are important for particle growth. They exhibit very slow and complex dynamics on very long time-scales, which requires large and long MD simulations. Additionally, we would like to model the diffusion of ions in water which on the other hand happens on rather short time scales but thus requires a much larger time resolution in the data. In order to enable the analysis of these phenomena again large amounts of storage are required with trajectories on the order of 5-25GB.
## Molecular crystals and organic liquids
Finally, we are wrapping up projects concerning organic liquids based on benzene an perylene derivatives. The individual molecules remain intact and exhibit regular motion on the timescale of femtoseconds. At elevated temperatures the molecules can start to diffuse and rotate similar to regular liquids. However, this rotational and diffusive motion happens on a nanosecond timescale and is thus much slower than the intramolecular motion. We must thus sample both the femto and nanosecond timescales, leading to long simulations and large MD trajectories.