Plasmon excitation by charged particles interacting with metal surfaces

✍ Scribed by A Bergara; J.M Pitarke; R.H Ritchie

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 94 KB
• Volume: 256
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0375-9601
• DOI: 10.1016/s0375-9601(99)00264-9

✦ Synopsis

angle on metal surfaces have shown that bulk plasmons are excited under conditions where the ions do not penetrate the surface, contrary to the usual statement that probes exterior to an electron gas do not couple to the bulk plasmon. We here use the quantized hydrodynamic model of the bounded electron gas to derive an explicit expression for the probability of Ž bulk plasmon excitation by external charged particles moving parallel to the surface. Our results indicate that for each q the . surface plasmon wave vector there exists a continuum of bulk plasmon excitations, which we also observe within the Ž . semi-classical infinite-barrier SCIB model of the surface.