It is known that covalently bonded materials undergo nonthermal structure transformations upon ultrafast excitation of an electronic system, whereas metals exhibit phonon hardening in the bulk. Here we study how ionic bonds react to electronic excitation. Density-functional molecular dynamics predicts that ionic crystals may melt nonthermally, however, into an electronically insulating state, in contrast to covalent materials. We demonstrate that the band gap behavior during nonthermal transitions depends on a bonding type: it is harder to collapse the band gap in more ionic compounds, which is illustrated by transformations in Y2O3 vs. NaCl, LiF and KBr.

Institute of Physics Czech Academy of Sciences Na Slovance 2 182 21 Prague 8 Czech Republic

Institute of Plasma Physics Czech Academy of Sciences Za Slovankou 3 182 00 Prague 8 Czech Republic

Joint Institute for Nuclear Research Joliot Curie 6 141980 Dubna Moscow Region Russia

National Research Centre 'Kurchatov Institute' Kurchatov Sq 1 123182 Moscow Russia

National University of Science and Technology MISiS Leninskij pr 4 119049 Moscow Russia

P N Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Leninskij pr 53 119991 Moscow Russia

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