Byeong June Min

Study of the electronic and the structural properties of small molybdenum clusters via projector augmented wave pseudopotential calculations

We studied the structural and the electronic properties of small molybdenum (Mo) clusters (n = 2 ~ 8) via projector augmented wave pseudopotential calculations with plane-wave basis functions. Our results show that the 4s- and 4p-semicore states play important roles in the description of small Mo clusters. Also, the dimerization tendency observed in previous theoretical calculations is significantly reduced when the semicore states are explicitly included as the valence states.

Plane wave density functional theory studies of the structural and the electronic properties of amino acids attached to graphene oxide via peptide bonding

We studied via plane wave pseudopotential total-energy calculations within the local spin density approximation (LSDA) the electronic and the structural properties of amino acids (alanine, glycine, and histidine) attached to graphene oxide (GO) by peptide bonding. The HOMO-LUMO gap, the Hirshfeld charges, and the equilibrium geometrical structures exhibit distinctive variations that depend on the species of the attached amino acid. The GO-amino acid system appears to be a good candidate for a biosensor.

Application of Monte Carlo Simulations to Improve Basketball Shooting Strategy

The underlying physics of basketball shooting seems to be a straightforward example of Newtonian mechanics that can easily be traced by using numerical methods. However, a human basketball player does not make use of all the possible basketball trajectories. Instead, a basketball player will build up a database of successful shots and select the trajectory that has the greatest tolerance to the small variations of the real world. We simulate the basketball player’s shooting training as a Monte Carlo sequence to build optimal shooting strategies, such as the launch speed and angle of the basketball, and whether to take a direct shot or a bank shot, as a function of the player’s court position and height. The phase-space volume Ω that belongs to the successful launch velocities generated by Monte Carlo simulations is then used as the criterion to optimize a shooting strategy that incorporates not only mechanical, but also human, factors.