Plasmonic excitations in noble metals: The case of Ag

The delicate interplay between plasmonic excitations and interband transitions in noble metals is described by means of ab initio calculations and a simple model in which the conduction electron plasmon is coupled to the continuum of electron-hole pairs. Band-structure effects, especially the energy...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Cazalilla, M. A., Dolado, Jorge S., Rubio, Angel, Echenique, Pedro M.
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2000
Country:España
Institution:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repository:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/225366
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/225366
Access Level:Open access
Description
Summary:The delicate interplay between plasmonic excitations and interband transitions in noble metals is described by means of ab initio calculations and a simple model in which the conduction electron plasmon is coupled to the continuum of electron-hole pairs. Band-structure effects, especially the energy at which the excitation of the d-like bands takes place, determine the existence of a threshold plasmonic mode, which manifests itself in Ag as a sharp resonance experimentally observed at 3.8 eV. However, such a resonance does not appear in the spectra of the other noble metals. Here this different behavior is also analyzed, and an explanation is provided.