We present a general embedding theory of electronic excitations of a relatively small, localized system in contact with an extended, chemically complex environment. We demonstrate how to include the screening response of the environment into highly accurate electronic structure calculation of the localized system by means of an effective interaction between the electrons, which contains only screening processes occurring in the environment. For the common case of a localized system which constitutes an inhomogeneity in an otherwise homogeneous system, such as a defect in a crystal, we show how matrix elements of the environment-screened interaction can be calculated from density-functional calculations of the homogeneous system only. We apply our embedding theory to the calculation of excitation energies in crystalline ethylene.
We use time-dependent density functional theory to calculate the energy loss of an antiproton colliding with a small Al cluster previously excited. The velocity of the antiproton is such that non-linear effects in the electronic response of the Al cluster are relevant. We obtain that an antiproton penetrating an excited cluster transfers less energy to the cluster than an antiproton penetrating a ground state cluster. We quantify this difference and analyze it in terms of the cluster excitation spectrum.
Accurate and efficient calculations of absorption spectra of molecules and materials are essential for the understanding and rational design of broad classes of systems. Solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) for electron-hole pairs usually yields accurate predictions of absorption spectra, but it is computationally expensive, especially if thermal averages of spectra computed for multiple configurations are required. We present a method based on machine learning to evaluate a key quantity entering the definition of absorption spectra: the dielectric screening. We show that our approach yie…
The energies of molecular excited states arise as solutions to the electronic Schrödinger equation and are often compared to experiment. At the same time, nuclear quantum motion is known to be important and to induce a red-shift of excited state energies. However, it is thus far unclear whether incorporating nuclear quantum motion in molecular excited state calculations leads to a systematic improvement of their predictive accuracy, making further investigation necessary. Here we present such an investigation by employing two first-principles methods for capturing the effect of quantum fluctua…
Excitons have recently been shown to deviate from pure bosons at densities a hundred times smaller than the Mott density. The corresponding calculations relied on the unscreened excitonic ground state wavefunction. A consistent inclusion of screening, by use of the fundamental eigenfunction of the Hulthén potential, vindicates this approximation.
We present first-principles many-body calculations of the dielectric constant, quasiparticle band structure, and optical absorption spectrum of monolayer MoS$_2$ using a supercell approach. As the separation between the periodically repeated layers is increased, the dielectric function of the layer develops a strong $q$ dependence around $q=0$. This implies that denser $k$-point grids are required to converge the band gap and exciton binding energies when large supercells are used. In the limit of infinite layer separation, here obtained using a truncated Coulomb interaction, a $45\times45$ $k…
We present an calculation of the electronic and optical excitations of an isolated polythiophene chain as well as of bulk polythiophene. We use the GW approximation for the electronic self-energy and include excitonic effects by solving the electron-hole Bethe-Salpeter equation. The inclusion of interchain screening in the case of bulk polythiophene drastically reduces both the quasi-particle band gap and the exciton binding energies, but the optical gap is hardly affected. This finding is relevant for conjugated polymers in general.
Angular dependent core-hole screening effects have been found in the cobalt K-edge x-ray absorption spectrum of LiCoO2, using high-resolution data and parameter-free GGA+U calculations. The Co 1s core-hole on the absorber causes strong local attraction. The core-hole screening on the nearest neighbours cobalt induces a 2 eV shift in the density of states with respect to the on-site 1s-3d transitions, as detected in the Co K pre-edge spectrum. Our DFT+U calculations reveal that the off-site screening is different in the out-of-plane direction, where a 3 eV shift is visible in both calculations …
We report a first-principles description of inelastic lifetimes of excited electrons in real Cu and Al, which we compute, within the GW approximation of many-body theory, from the knowledge of the self-energy of the excited quasiparticle. Our full band-structure calculations indicate that actual lifetimes are the result of a delicate balance between localization, density of states, screening, and Fermi-surface topology. A major contribution from $d$-electrons participating in the screening of electron-electron interactions yields lifetimes of excited electrons in copper that are larger than th…
This paper presents a study of electron spin dynamics in bulk GaAs at low temperatures for elevated optical excitation conditions. Our time-resolved Faraday rotation measurements yield sub-nanosecond electron spin dephasing-times over a wide range of n-doping concentrations in quantitative agreement with a microscopic treatment of electron spin dynamics. The calculation shows the occurrence and breakdown of motional narrowing for spin dephasing under elevated excitation conditions. We also find a peak of the spin dephasing time around a doping density for which, under lower excitation conditio…
Monolayers of transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) hold great promise as future nanoelectronic and optoelectronic devices. An essential feature for achieving high device performance is the use of suitable supporting substrates, which can affect the electronic and optical properties of these two-dimensional (2D) materials. Here, we perform many-body GW calculations using the SternheimerGW method to investigate the quasiparticle band structure of monolayer MoS2 subject to an effective dielectric screening model, which is meant to approximately describe substrate polarization in real device ap…
Accurate and efficient simulation of excited state properties is an important and much aspired cornerstone in the study of adsorbate dynamics on metal surfaces. To this end, the recently proposed linear expansion ΔSelf-Consistent Field (leΔSCF) method by Gavnholt et al. [Phys. Rev. B 78, 075441 (2008)] presents an efficient alternative to time consuming quasi-particle calculations. In this method the standard Kohn-Sham equations of Density-Functional Theory are solved with the constraint of a non-equilibrium occupation in a region of Hilbert-space resembling gas-phase orbitals of the adsorbate…
We investigate how controlling induced eddy currents in thin film ferromagnet-normal metal (FM/NM) structures can be used to tailor the local microwave (MW) fields in ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) experiments. The MW fields produced by eddy currents will in general have a relative phase shift with respect to the applied MW field which depends on the sample geometry. The induced fields can thus partially compensate the applied MW field, effectively screening the FM in selected parts of the sample. The highly localized fields produced by eddy currents enable the excitation of spin wave modes wit…
Ultrafast laser excitation can induce fast increases of the electronic subsystem temperature. The subsequent electronic evolutions in terms of band structure and energy distribution can determine the change of several thermodynamic properties, including one essential for energy deposition; the electronic heat capacity. Using density functional calculations performed at finite electronic temperatures, the electronic heat capacities dependent on electronic temperatures are obtained for a series of metals, including free electron like, transition and noble metals. The effect of exchange and corre…
We discuss an efficient approach to excited electronic states within ab-initio many-body perturbation theory (MBPT). Quasiparticle corrections to density-functional theory result from the difference between metallic and non-metallic dielectric screening. They are evaluated as a small perturbation to the DFT-LDA band structure, rather than fully calculating the self energy and evaluating its difference from the exchange-correlation potential. The dielectric screening is desribed by a model, which applies to bulk crystals, as well as, to systems of reduced dimension, like molecules, surfaces, in…
Exciton binding energy and excited states in monolayers of tungsten diselenide (WSe2) are investigated using the combined linear absorption and two-photon photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy. The exciton binding energy is determined to be 0.37eV, which is about an order of magnitude larger than that in III-V semiconductor quantum wells and renders the exciton excited states observable even at room temperature. The exciton excitation spectrum with both experimentally determined one- and two-photon active states is distinct from the simple two-dimensional (2D) hydrogenic model. This result…
