Tutorial 6: First-Principles Techniques for Interacting Electrons and Phonons

Recent advances in the theoretical description and computational methodology have made harmonic and anharmonic electron-phonon effects amenable to detailed, quantitative investigations. While the underlying techniques are only now becoming standard, and are oftentimes computationally expensive, the availability of modern high-performance computing has enabled fantastic progress, e.g. for electron-phonon effects on band structures, optical absorption, recombination, and transport. It is expected that not only will existing techniques be improved, they will become crucial for progress in many areas of materials research and condensed matter physics. This step requires that a broad base of scientists is familiar with theoretical concepts and their implementation in first-principles codes. This APS tutorial bridges the gap by introducing underlying theory and explaining practical calculations, towards understanding exciting physics for real- world applications, including semiconductor optics or thermoelectrics. The tutorial will be interesting for computational materials scientists and physicists who contemplate investigating electron-phonon effects in their research, and for experimentalists who want to connect more closely with simulation methods and first principles predictions.