Energy transfer from intense laser pulse to dielectrics in time-dependent density functional theory

TL;DR

This paper uses time-dependent density functional theory to investigate how intense ultrashort laser pulses transfer energy to electrons in dielectrics like silicon, diamond, and quartz, comparing results with Keldysh theory.

Contribution

It provides a first-principles analysis of laser energy transfer to electrons in dielectrics and compares TDDFT results with traditional Keldysh theory, highlighting their differences.

Findings

TDDFT captures detailed energy transfer dynamics.

Keldysh theory reproduces main features but shows deviations.

Differences are analyzed in detail.

Abstract

Energy transfer processes from a high-intensity ultrashort laser pulse to electrons in simple dielectrics, silicon, diamond, and $\alpha$-quartz are theoretically investigated by first-principles calculations based on time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT). Dependences on frequency as well as intensity of the laser pulse are examined in detail, making a comparison with the Keldysh theory. Although the Keldysh theory reliably reproduces the main features of the TDDFT calculation, we find some deviations between results by the two theories. The origin of the differences is examined in detail.