Unified theoretical description of thermal and nonthermal laser-induced ultrafast structural changes in solids

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Bauerhenne, Bernd, Garcia, Martin E.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Bauerhenne, Bernd
Garcia, Martin E.
author_facet Bauerhenne, Bernd
Garcia, Martin E.
contents The ultrafast dynamics of ions in solids following intense femtosecond laser excitation is governed by two fundamentally distinct yet interplaying effects. On one hand, the significant generation of hot electron-hole pairs by the light pulse alters the strength and nature of interatomic bonding, resulting in nonthermal ionic motion. On the other hand, incoherent electron-ion collisions drives an equilibration of the electrons and the ions, which reach a common temperature on a picosecond timescale. This letter introduces, for the first time, a unified theory that comprehensively accounts for both phenomena. Our approach is versatile, applicable to both ab-initio and large-scale molecular dynamics simulations, and leads to a generalization of the two-temperature model-molecular-dynamics equations of motion. To illustrate the effectiveness of our method, we apply it to describe the laser excitation of silicon thin films. Our simulations reproduce the time evolution of the Bragg peaks in excellent agreement with the experiments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_09922
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Unified theoretical description of thermal and nonthermal laser-induced ultrafast structural changes in solids
Bauerhenne, Bernd
Garcia, Martin E.
Computational Physics
Materials Science
The ultrafast dynamics of ions in solids following intense femtosecond laser excitation is governed by two fundamentally distinct yet interplaying effects. On one hand, the significant generation of hot electron-hole pairs by the light pulse alters the strength and nature of interatomic bonding, resulting in nonthermal ionic motion. On the other hand, incoherent electron-ion collisions drives an equilibration of the electrons and the ions, which reach a common temperature on a picosecond timescale. This letter introduces, for the first time, a unified theory that comprehensively accounts for both phenomena. Our approach is versatile, applicable to both ab-initio and large-scale molecular dynamics simulations, and leads to a generalization of the two-temperature model-molecular-dynamics equations of motion. To illustrate the effectiveness of our method, we apply it to describe the laser excitation of silicon thin films. Our simulations reproduce the time evolution of the Bragg peaks in excellent agreement with the experiments.
title Unified theoretical description of thermal and nonthermal laser-induced ultrafast structural changes in solids
topic Computational Physics
Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.09922