Radiative Recoil in the Vavilov-Cherenkov Effect with Excitation of Surface Plasmons

TL;DR

This paper explores a novel analogue of the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect involving surface plasmons on a metal-dielectric boundary, highlighting how low plasmon velocities enable excitation by electrons of moderate energy.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of radiative recoil in the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect with surface plasmons, demonstrating how boundary conditions facilitate excitation of high-momentum plasmons by electrons.

Findings

Surface plasmons can be excited by electrons with tens of eV energy.

The plasmon velocity is significantly lower than wave velocity in uniform space.

Excited plasmons can have linear momentum twice that of the initial electron.

Abstract

An effect that is an analogue to the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect in a uniform space would be observed in a space with a boundary of well reflecting light metal-dielectric. The main difference is in that quanta of some electron volt would be excited by an electron of energy of some tens of electron volts. This would become possible because the surface plasmon velocity is very small as compared with the velocity of waves of a uniform space. Beetwen excited plasmons there is a plasmon with a linear momentum as high as the doubled initial momentum of the electron.