Guidelines for creating artificial neural network empirical interatomic potential from first-principles molecular...

First-principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations are highly accurate, but due to their high calculation cost, the computational scale is often limited to hundreds of atoms and few picoseconds under specific temperature and pressure conditions. We present here the guidelines for creating artificial neural network empirical interatomic potential (ANN potential) trained with such a limited FPMD data, which can perform long time scale MD simulations at least under the same conditions. The FPMD data for training are prepared on the basis of the convergence of radial distribution function [g(r)]. While training the ANN using total energy and atomic forces of the FPMD data, the error of pressure is also monitored and minimized. To create further robust potential, we add a small amount of FPMD data to reproduce the interaction between two atoms that are close to each other. ANN potentials for α-Ag₂Se were created as an application example, and it has been confirmed that not only g(r) and mean square displacements but also the specific heat requiring a long time scale simulation matched the FPMD and the experimental values. In addition, the MD simulation using the ANN potential achieved over 10⁴ acceleration over the FPMD one. The guidelines proposed here mitigate the creation difficulty of the ANN potential, and a lot of FPMD data sleeping on the hard disk after the research may be put on the front stage again.