Surface Plasmon in a Semi-Infinite Free-Electron Gas
- 1 April 1971
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review B
- Vol. 3 (7), 2270-2278
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.3.2270
Abstract
When electron-lifetime effects, electron-hole pair excitations, or both are included in the description of an electron gas, the frequency associated with the surface plasmon is a complex quantity, the imaginary part providing a measure of the damping of the plasmon. The surface-plasmon dispersion relation then involves the specification of this complex frequency as a function of the wave vector parallel to the surface. A general theory is developed for such a surface-plasmon dispersion relation in a semi-infinite free-electron gas bounded by a surface that scatters the electrons specularly. The properties of the electron gas enter through the nonlocal transverse and longitudinal dielectric functions and , both of which include a finite electron lifetime here. The results obtained using local and hydrodynamic approximations for the dielectric functions are presented briefly, and the self-consistent-field approximation is discussed in detail. The calculations are done both with and without retardation.
Keywords
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