The effect of intense ultrashort irradiation on interatomic forces, crystal stability, and possible melting transition of the underlying lattice is not completely elucidated. By using ab initio linear response to compute the phonon spectrum of gold, silicon, and aluminum, we found that silicon and gold behave in opposite ways when increasing radiation intensity: whereas a weakening of the silicon bond induces a lattice instability, gold undergoes a sharp increase of its melting temperature, while a significantly smaller effect is observed for aluminum for electronic temperatures up to 6 eV.

• Received 4 October 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.055503