Computational material science as an application of Density Functional Theory (DFT) to the discipline of material science has emerged and applied to the research and development of energy materials and electronic materials such as semiconductor. However, there are a few difficulties, such as generating input files for various types of materials in both the same calculating condition and appropriate parameters, which is essential in comparing results of DFT calculation in the right way. In this tutorial status report, we will introduce how to create crystal structures and to prepare input files automatically for the Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package (VASP) and Gaussian, the most popular DFT calculation programs. We anticipate this tutorial makes DFT calculation easier for the ones who are not experts on DFT programs.

As the recent climate problems are getting worse year after year, the demands for clean energy materials have highly increased in modern society. However, the candidate material classes for clean energy expand rapidly and the outcomes are too complex to be interpreted at laboratory scale (e.g., multicomponent materials). In order to overcome these issues, the firstprinciples calculations are becoming attractive in the field of material science. The calculations can be performed rapidly using virtual environments without physical limitations in a vast candidate pool, and theory can address the origin of activity through the calculations of electronic structure of materials, even if the structure of material is too complex. Therefore, in terms of the latest trends, we report academic progress related to the first-principles calculations for design of efficient electrocatalysts. The basic background for theory and specific research examples are reported together with the perspective on the design of novel materials using first-principles calculations.