The response of matter to external fields forms the basis for a vast wealth of fundamental physical processes ranging from light harvesting to nanoscale electron transport. Accurately modeling ultrafast electron dynamics in excited systems thus offers unparalleled insight but requires an inherently nonlinear time-resolved approach. To this end, an efficient and massively parallel real-time real-space time-dependent density functional theory (RT-TDDFT) implementation in NWChem is presented. The implementation is first validated against linear-response TDDFT and experimental results for a series of molecules subjected to small electric field perturbations. Second, nonlinear excitation of green fluorescent protein is studied, which shows a blue-shift in the spectrum with increasing perturbation, as well as a saturation in absorption. Next, the charge dynamics of optically excited zinc porphyrin is presented in real time and real space, with relevance to charge injection in photovoltaic devices. Finally, intermolecular excitation in an adenine-thymine base pair is studied using the BNL range separated functional [ Baer , R. ; Neuhauser , D. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2005 , 94 , 043002 ], demonstrating the utility of a real-time approach in capturing charge transfer processes.

We discuss our implementation and application of time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) to core-level near-edge absorption spectroscopy, using both linear-response (LR) and real-time (RT) approaches. We briefly describe our restricted excitation window TDDFT (REW-TDDFT) approach for core excitations, which has also been reported by other groups. This is followed by a detailed discussion of real-time TDDFT techniques tailored to core excitations, including obtaining spectral information through delta-function excitation, postprocessing time-dependent signals, and resonant excitation through quasi-monochromatic excitation. We present results for the oxygen K-edge of water and carbon monoxide; the carbon K-edge of carbon monoxide; the ruthenium L3-edge for the hexaamminerutheium(III) ion, including scalar relativistic corrections via the zeroth order regular approximation (ZORA); and the carbon and fluorine K-edges for a series of fluorobenzenes. In all cases, the calculated spectra are found to be in reasonable agreement with experimental results, requiring only a uniform shift ranging from -4 eV to +19 eV, i.e., on the order of a few percent of the excitation energy. Real-time TDDFT visualization of excited state charge densities is used to visually examine the nature of each excitation, which gives insight into the effects of atoms bound to the absorbing center.