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Multiscale Materials Modeling Laboratory

This wiki is the working notebook of Liu Theory Lab at Westlake University. It collects the things that help in day-to-day research: tutorials, install notes, HPC tips, analysis workflows, and the small pieces of group knowledge that would otherwise disappear into chat history.

The public website tells the external story of the lab. This site is for the hands-on part: how we run calculations, reproduce results, and get new people moving without too much friction.

Research Snapshots

A small set of tutorials that map directly onto recent papers from the group. Each one is meant to help you reproduce a concrete workflow rather than just browse a topic at a high level.
Sliding ferroelectrics research highlight

Implementing Dynamic BEC Simulations in LAMMPS

Learn how displacement-dependent Born effective charges can be fitted and embedded into LAMMPS to simulate field-driven sliding ferroelectrics with machine-learned force fields.

Related paper: Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 046201 (2025). Editors' Suggestion.

Ferroelectric switching configuration used in the rPEM workflow

Persistent Embryo Method and Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire Model for Domain Nucleation

Follow the revised persistent embryo method and LGD analysis used to identify critical nuclei and switching behavior in ferroelectric hafnia.

Related paper: Phys. Rev. X 15, 021042 (2025).

Finite-temperature piezoelectric tensor workflow from molecular dynamics

Calculating the Full Piezoelectric Tensor at Finite Temperature using MD

Compute the full finite-temperature piezoelectric tensor from molecular dynamics by combining strain, stress, and polarization analysis into one reproducible workflow.

Related paper: Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 016801 (2026).