Generating hot carriers in plasmonic nanoparticles: when quantization does and does not matter?

Abstract

Plasmon-assisted hot carrier processes in metal nanoparticles can be described either classically or using the full strength of quantum mechanics. We reconfirm that from the practical applications point of view, when it comes to description of the decay of plasmons in nanoparticles, classical description is sufficiently adequate for all but the smallest of the nanoparticles. At the same time, the electron temperature rise in nanoparticles is discrete (quantized) and neglecting this fact can lead to significant underestimating of hot carrier assisted effects, such as photo-catalysis.

References in corpus (8)

• Quantum Plasmonics
• How to face the loss in plasmonics and metamaterials
• Observation of intrinsic size effects in the optical response of individual gold nanoparticles
• Hot carriers generated by plasmons: where are they are generated and where do they go from there?
• Quantum corrections in nanoplasmonics: shape, scale, and material
• Ultimate limit of field confinement by surface plasmon polaritons
• Thermalization in simple metals: The role of electron-phonon and phonon-phonon scatterings
• Understanding Hot-Electron Generation and Plasmon Relaxation in Metal Nanocrystals: Quantum and Classical Mechanisms

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Challenges in Plasmonic Catalysis
• Simple experimental procedures to distinguish photothermal from hot-carrier processes in plasmonics
• Recent developments in plasmon-assisted photocatalysis -- a personal perspective
• The electronic and thermal response of low electron density Drude materials to ultrafast optical illumination
• Plasmonically assisted channels of photoemission from metals
• Generation of plasmonic hot carriers from d-bands in metallic nanoparticles
• Electron emission from plasmonically induced Floquet bands at metal surfaces