Transport and optical response of molecular junctions driven by surface plasmon-polaritons

TL;DR

This paper investigates how surface plasmon-polaritons influence the transport and optical properties of biased molecular junctions under time-dependent electromagnetic fields, using numerical modeling for different geometries.

Contribution

It introduces a combined approach using finite-difference time-domain and non-equilibrium Green's functions to analyze plasmonic effects on molecular junctions.

Findings

Localized surface plasmon polariton modes significantly affect transport properties.

Numerical results demonstrate the impact of junction geometry on optical response.

The model provides insights into plasmon-driven transport mechanisms.

Abstract

We consider a biased molecular junction subjected to external time-dependent electromagnetic field. The field for two typical junction geometries (bowtie antennas and metal nanospheres) is calculated within finite-difference time-domain technique. Time-dependent transport and optical response of the junctions is calculated within non-equilibrium Green's function approach expressed in a form convenient for description of multi-level systems. We present numerical results for a two-level (HOMO-LUMO) model, and discuss influence of localized surface plasmon polariton modes on transport.