Time-dependent density functional theory is implemented in an all electron solid-state code for the case of fully non-collinear spins. We use this to study laser induced demagnetization in Fe, Co and Ni. It is shown that this demagnetization is a two-step process: excitation of a fraction of electrons followed by spin-flip transitions of the remaining localized electrons. These results successfully explain several experimental features such as the time-lag between the start of the pulse and demagnetization and spin-flip excitations dominating the physics. We further show that it is possible to control the moment loss by tunable laser parameters like frequency, duration and intensity.
@article{arxiv.1406.6607,
title = {Laser induced ultrafast demagnetization: an \emph{ab-initio} perspective},
author = {K. Krieger and J. K. Dewhurst and P. Elliott and S. Sharma and E. K. U. Gross},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1406.6607},
year = {2014}
}