Metallization of Nanofilms in Strong Adiabatic Electric Fields

TL;DR

This paper predicts a quantum-induced metallization of dielectric nanofilms under strong adiabatic electric fields, significantly altering their optical properties to resemble those of plasmonic metals, with potential applications in nanophotonics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel quantum effect causing dielectric nanofilms to metallize under strong electric fields, with size-dependent and ultrafast dynamics.

Findings

Metallization occurs at fields around 0.1 V/A.

Effect is exponentially size-dependent.

Transition occurs within femtosecond to nanosecond pulses.

Abstract

We introduce an effect of metallization of dielectric nanofilms by strong, adiabatically varying electric fields. The metallization causes optical properties of a dielectric film to become similar to those of a plasmonic metal (strong absorption and negative permittivity at low optical frequencies). The is a quantum effect, which is exponentially size-dependent, occurring at fields on the order of 0.1 V/A and pulse durations ranging from ~ 1 fs to ~ 10 ns for film thickness 3 to 10 nm.