Ultrafast equilibration of excited electrons in dynamical simulations. uri icon

abstract

  • In our density-functional-based simulations of materials responding to femtosecond-scale laser pulses, we have observed a potentially useful phenomenon: the excited electrons automatically equilibrate to a Fermi-Dirac distribution within 100fs, solely because of their coupling to the nuclear motion, even though the resulting electronic temperature is one to two orders of magnitude higher than the kinetic temperature defined by the nuclear motion. Microscopic simulations like these can then provide the separate electronic and kinetic temperatures, chemical potentials, pressures, and nonhydrostatic stresses as input for studies on larger lengths and timescales.

published proceedings

  • J Phys Condens Matter

author list (cited authors)

  • Lin, Z., & Allen, R. E.

citation count

  • 16

complete list of authors

  • Lin, Zhibin||Allen, Roland E

publication date

  • December 2009