Theoretical predictions for hot-carrier generation from surface plasmon decay

Decay of surface plasmons to hot carriers finds a wide variety of applications in energy conversion, photocatalysis and photodetection. However, a detailed theoretical description of plasmonic hot-carrier generation in real materials has remained incomplete. Here we report predictions for the prompt distributions of excited 'hot' electrons and holes generated by plasmon decay, before inelastic relaxation, using a quantized plasmon model with detailed electronic structure. We find that carrier energy distributions are sensitive to the electronic band structure of the metal: gold and copper produce holes hotter than electrons by 1-2 eV, while silver and aluminium distribute energies more equitably between…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy

  Awards: DE-SC0004993, SC0004993
• RS
  Resnick Sustainability Institute for Science, Energy and Sustainability, California Institute of Technology
• OO
  Office of Science

  Awards: DE-SC0004993, Award Number DE-SC0004993