Pythtb

I just found this python package developed by Vanderbilt group in Rutgers. It is incredibly useful. As self-categorizing as a member of the “topological community” in condensed matter, I often need to do some band structure calculations for tight-binding models on various lattices. These are elementary ones, but sometimes a lot of work — doing Fourier transformation, calculating Berry curvatures and mistakes can easily sneak in for careless people like me. But Pythtb just kills all tight-binding model caculations — maybe not all, but at least most of them — in one shot. With a few lines of python codes you can easily build up models even with complicated lattice geometry and hoppings, solve for the dispersions and plot them nicely. For those who are interested in topological stuff, it has a lot more than one could have thought: Berry phase, Berry curvature, Wannier center, finite lattice, edge states….I feel like I’m promoting it, but it is really a wonderful piece of work. I even think one should code a GUI for it and just “draw” models on the screen.