KSSOLV Toolbox: A MATLAB Graphical User Interface for Plane-Wave Density Functional Theory Calculations
KSSOLV (Kohn-Sham Solver) is a MATLAB package for plane-wave Kohn-Sham density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Here, we present the KSSOLV Toolbox, a MATLAB-based graphical and workflow-oriented environment built on KSSOLV to simplify the setup, execution, and analysis of plane-wave DFT calculations. The toolbox integrates structure import, symmetry analysis, self-consistent and non-self-consistent calculations, postprocessing, and visualization within a unified interface, while retaining access to the underlying KSSOLV computational backend. To improve reproducibility and project management, calculation settings, workflows, and results are organized in a single project file. We further assess the numerical consistency and practical computational behavior of the toolbox through benchmark calculations against established plane-wave codes. Comparisons with Quantum ESPRESSO show close agreement in total energies and atomic forces, and single-thread CPU timing tests against M-SPARC, DFTK.jl, PyPWDFT, and Quantum ESPRESSO clarify the computational performance of KSSOLV for PBE and HSE06 calculations on Si systems of different sizes. The KSSOLV Toolbox is intended as a transparent and accessible platform for plane-wave DFT workflow organization, method development, validation, and rapid prototyping.
Authors
- Jie Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4801-7162)
- Liu Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0538-9238)
- Wei Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9629-2121)
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Hefei National Center for Physical Sciences at Nanoscale (CN)
- Microscale (United States) (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation
- Published
- 2026-05-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jctc.6c00523
- Primary Topic
- Electromagnetic Simulation and Numerical Methods
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Southwest University of Science and Technology
- University of Science and Technology of China
- National Key Research and Development Program of China