Plasmon-Induced Hot Carriers in Metallic Nanoparticles

Plasmon-induced hot carrier formation is attracting an increasing research interest due to its potential for applications in photocatalysis, photodetection and solar energy harvesting. However, despite very significant experimental effort, a comprehensive theoretical description of the hot carrier generation process is still missing. In this work we develop a theoretical model for the plasmon-induced hot carrier process and apply it to spherical silver nanoparticles and nanoshells. In this model, the conduction electrons of the metal are described as free particles in a finite spherical potential well, and the plasmon-induced hot carrier production is calculated using Fermi’s golden rule. We show that the…