ELECTRON-PHONON COUPLING IN MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS CODES

Computer simulations using molecular dynamics (MD) have become the sta ndard tool to describe the dynamics of energetic collision cascades. H owever, several problems concerning the physical description within MD schemes still remain open. One of the most challenging is the fact th at MD simulations describe the thermal behavior of an insulator, negle cting the conductivity due to electrons. In this work we review some o f the relevant ideas proposed to incorporate this effect.