In time-dependent density-functional theory, a family of exchange-correlation kernels, known as long-range-corrected (LRC) kernels, have shown promise in the calculation of excitonic effects in solids. We perform a systematic assessment of existing static LRC kernels (empirical LRC, Bootstrap, and jellium-with-a-gap model) for a range of semiconductors and insulators, focusing on optical spectra and exciton binding energies. We find that no LRC kernel is capable of simultaneously producing good optical spectra and quantitatively accurate exciton binding energies for both semiconductors and insulators. We propose a simple and universal, empirically scaled Bootstrap kernel which yields accurate exciton binding energies for all materials under consideration, with low computational cost.

We review recent theoretical and computational developments in time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) for periodic insulators and semiconductors. To capture excitonic effects within a linear-response TDDFT framework requires using exchange-correlation (xc) kernels with a proper long-range behavior, which can be efficiently modeled with a class of so-called long-range corrected xc kernels. While attractive from a computational standpoint, these xc kernels have their limitations and require judicious use. We review the pros and cons of various xc kernels in the literature, and discuss an empirical scaling approach to obtain accurate exciton binding energies with TDDFT. We also discuss generalized TDDFT approaches for excitons using hybrid functionals.

The GW approximation to many-body perturbation theory is a reliable tool for describing charged electronic excitations, and it has been successfully applied to a wide range of extended systems for several decades using a plane-wave basis. However, the GW approximation has been used to test limited spectral properties of a limited set of finite systems (e.g., frontier orbital energies of closed-shell sp molecules) only for about a decade using a local-orbital basis. Here, we calculate the quasiparticle spectra of closed- and open-shell molecular anions with partially and completely filled 3d shells (shallow and deep 3d states, respectively), ScO−, TiO−, CuO−, and ZnO−, using various levels of GW theory, and compare them to experiments to evaluate the performance of the GW approximation on the electronic structure of small molecules containing 3d transition metals. We find that the G-only eigenvalue self-consistent GW scheme with W fixed to the PBE level (GnW0@PBE), which gives the best compromise between accuracy and efficiency for solids, also gives good results for both localized (d) and delocalized (sp) states of 3d-transition-metal oxide molecules. The success of GnW0@PBE in predicting electronic excitations in these systems reasonably well is likely due to the fortuitous cancellation effect between the overscreening of the Coulomb interaction by PBE and the underscreening by the neglect of vertex corrections. Together with the absence of the self-consistent field convergence error (e.g., spin contamination in open-shell systems) and the GW multisolution issue, the GnW0@PBE scheme gives the possibility to predict the electronic structure of complex real systems (e.g., molecule-solid and sp-d hybrid systems) accurately and efficiently.

Excitonic effects in solids can be calculated using the Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) or the Casida equation of time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT). In both methods, the Tamm-Dancoff approximation (TDA), which decouples excitations and de-excitations, is widely used to reduce computational cost. Here, we study the effect of the TDA on exciton binding energies of solids obtained from the Casida equation using long-range-corrected (LRC) exchange-correlation kernels. We find that the TDA underestimates TDDFT-LRC exciton binding energies of semiconductors slightly, but those of insulators significantly (i.e., by more than 100%), and thus it is essential to solve the full Casida equation to describe strongly bound excitons. These findings are relevant in the ongoing search for accurate and efficient TDDFT approaches for excitons.

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