1210.4777 (B. Arnaud et al.)

Electron cooling and Debye-Waller effect in photoexcited bismuth    [PDF]

B. Arnaud, Y. Giret

By means of first principles calculations, we computed the effective electron-phonon coupling constant $G_0$ governing the electron cooling in photoexcited bismuth. $G_0$ strongly increases as a function of electron temperature, which can be traced back to the semi-metallic nature of bismuth. We also used a thermodynamical model to compute the time evolution of both electron and lattice temperatures following laser excitation. Thereby, we simulated the time evolution of (1 -1 0), (-2 1 1) and (2 -2 0) Bragg peak intensities measured by Sciaini et al [Nature 458, 56 (2009)] in femtosecond electron diffraction experiments. The effect of the electron temperature on the Debye-Waller factors through the softening of all optical modes across the whole Brillouin zone turns out to be crucial to reproduce the time evolution of these Bragg peak intensities.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.4777