Prominence of Terahertz Acoustic Surface Plasmon Excitation in Gas–Surface Interaction with Metals

Abstract

The current understanding of the dynamics of gas−surface interactions is that all of the energy lost in the collision is transferred to vibrations of the target. Electronic excitations were shown to play a marginal role except for cases in which the impinging particles have energies of several electronvolts. Here we show that this picture does not hold for metal surfaces supporting acoustic surface plasmons. Such loss, dressed with a vibronic structure, is shown to make up a prominent energy transfer route down to the terahertz region for Ne atoms scattering off Cu(111) and is expected to dominate for most metals. This mechanism determines, e.g., the drag force acting on telecommunication satellites, which are typically gold-plated to reduce overheating by sunshine. The electronic excitations can be unambiguously discerned from the vibrational ones under mild hyperthermal impact conditions.

Impact of the energy dispersion anisotropy on the plasmonic structure in a two-dimensional electron system

“…Due to such dispersion those plasmons can concentrate light on an even smaller scale. A similar excitation called acoustic surface plasmon was predicted 29,30 and measured on simple, 31 noble, [32][33][34][35] and transition 36 metal surfaces where the slow electrons in a partially filled Shockley state are dynamically screened by the fast electrons of the metallic substrate. It has also been predicted that in graphene the presence of carriers moving with different Fermi velocities in the same energy band (namely in two valleys) can also lead to an AP.…”

Plasmonic gas sensors based on nanomaterials: mechanisms and recent developments

“…In LSPs, the plasmonic modes are constrained within small volumes as available in metal nanostructures, whereas PSPs occur on extended metal surfaces. Recently, acoustic plasmon sensors employing acoustic SPs have been proposed for various applications [69]. Thus, plasmons-based sensors find applications in various fields including diagnostics, medicine, security, environmental monitoring, and food safety [68,[70][71][72][73][74].…”

Surface electronic corrugation of a one-dimensional topological metal: Bi(114)

“…He scattering occurs from the surface electronic corrugation above the ion cores, 21,32,33 as illustrated by the exemplary corrugation in Fig. 1(b).…”