Surface-plasmon dispersion for diffuse boundary scattering

Abstract

The dispersion of surface plasmons in a metal is studied for a half-space jellium model using the Boltzman-Vlasov equation. A general dispersion equation is derived which makes explicit the dependence of the dispersion on the nature of the scattering of the electrons at the boundary. The case of diffuse scattering is dealt with in detail using the Wiener-Hopf technique and the results compared with those for the case of specular scattering. Numerical results are given for the terms linear in the wave vector $k_{\parallel }$ for the surface-plasmon frequency and damping. It is found that the damping increases as the boundary scattering becomes more isotropic.