Ultrafast thermalization dynamics of hot electrons in titanium nitride

Titanium nitride (TiN) is a hard material with a high melting point and good electrical and thermal conductivity making TiN attractive for applications in hot carrier devices. We study the ultrafast thermalization dynamics of excited carriers in TiN due to their interaction with phonons. For this, we use the two-temperature model with parameters determined from ab initio density-functional theory calculations. We find that lifetimes of hot carrier populations in TiN are shorter than one picosecond. We also study the effect of oxygen defects on hot carrier thermalization.