Excitons in solids with time-dependent density-functional theory: the bootstrap kernel and beyond

Time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) is an efficient method to describe the optical properties of solids. Lately, a series of bootstrap-type exchange-correlation (xc) kernels have been reported to produce accurate excitons in solids, but different bootstrap-type kernels exist in the literature, with mixed results. In this presentation, we reveal the origin of the confusion and show a new empirical TDDFT xc kernel to compute excitonic properties of semiconductors and insulators efficiently and accurately. Our method can be used for high-throughput screening calculations and large unit cell calculations.