Simple screened exact-exchange approach for excitonic properties in solids

We present a screened exact-exchange (SXX) method for the efficient and accurate calculation of the optical properties of solids, where the screening is achieved through the zero-wave-vector limit of the inverse dielectric function. The SXX approach can be viewed as a simplification of the Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) or, in the context of time-dependent density-functional theory, as a first step towards a new class of hybrid functionals for the optical properties of solids. SXX performs well for bound excitons and continuum spectra in both small-gap semiconductors and large-gap insulators, with a computational cost much lower than that of the BSE.