We have developed and implemented a new ab initio code, Ceres (Computational Emulator of Rare Earth Systems), completely written in C++11, which is dedicated to the efficient calculation of the electronic structure and magnetic properties of the crystal field states arising from the splitting of the ground state spin-orbit multiplet in lanthanide complexes. The new code gains efficiency via an optimized implementation of a direct configurational averaged Hartree-Fock (CAHF) algorithm for the determination of 4f quasi-atomic active orbitals common to all multi-electron spin manifolds contributing to the ground spin-orbit multiplet of the lanthanide ion. The new CAHF implementation is based on quasi-Newton convergence acceleration techniques coupled to an efficient library for the direct evaluation of molecular integrals, and problem-specific density matrix guess strategies. After describing the main features of the new code, we compare its efficiency with the current state-of-the-art ab initio strategy to determine crystal field levels and properties, and show that our methodology, as implemented in Ceres, represents a more time-efficient computational strategy for the evaluation of the magnetic properties of lanthanide complexes, also allowing a full representation of non-perturbative spin-orbit coupling effects. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Keywords: ab initio; configurational average; crystal field levels; electronic structure theory; lanthanide single molecule magnets.
© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.