Recent Research Progress on Electron Dynamics in Solids

I have been engaged in a long-term project to apply time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) to electronic systems.
Density functional theory is now the computational paradigm for quantum mechanical calculations of energies and properties of
molecules and condensed matter. The time-dependent theory applies particularly to electronic excitation and interactions with
the electromagnetic field. With my collaborator Kazuhiro Yabana, we have developed a real-time formalism and a computer
code to apply the theory to many observables. In recent years we have given increased attention to processes involving
high-intensity laser pulses. TDDFT is the only quantum theory of high-field effects that is computationally practical for large
systems. One example of a new application for the theory is coherent phonon production by laser pulses, "Coherent phonon
generation in time-dependent density functional theory."
. The figure below shows the electron density in the crystal before
the pulse is applied and during the pulse.

Another example is the change in dielectric properties of a solid after it has been excited by a strong laser pulse. The properties
can be measured by pump-probe laser experiments, but until now only simplified models were available to interpret the results.
We have found that the TDDFT can applied to make numerical pump-probe experiments, and we can extract quantities such as
the dielectric function of the excited system. The method is described in our paper, "Time-dependent density functional theory for
strong electromagnetic fields in crystalline solids."
As an example, the figure below shows the reflectivity as a function of the
intensity of the pump pulse from the laser. The sharp rise at high intensity is due to the formation of an electron-hole plasma.
Since the plasma is a conductor, it tends to reflect the incident radiation.