  We have studied the thermalization of hot carriers in both pristine and
defective titanium nitride (TiN) using a two-temperature model. All parameters
of this model, including the electron-phonon coupling parameter, were obtained
from first-principles density-functional theory calculations. The virtual
crystal approximation was used to describe defective systems. We find that
thermalization of hot carriers occurs on much faster time scales than in gold
as a consequence of the significantly stronger electron-phonon coupling in TiN.
Specifically, the largest thermalization times, on the order of 200
femtoseconds, are found in TiN with nitrogen vacancies for electron
temperatures around 4000 K.
