Laser-induced melting of silicon: A tight-binding molecular dynamics simulation

The tight-binding molecular dynamics method with hot electrons is used to simulate the laser-induced melting of silicon. The results are in good agreement with previous ab initio simulation and experimental data. Our findings assess the reliability of the tight-binding model to describe silicon with a high concentration of excited electrons. The role of volume changes in the laser-induced melting has also been addressed within constant-pressure tight-binding molecular dynamics.