Molecular nanoplasmonics: self-consistent electrodynamics in current carrying junctions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how self-consistent modeling of electromagnetic fields and molecular responses is essential for accurately describing transport in biased molecular junctions under external electromagnetic influence.

Contribution

It introduces a self-consistent approach to account for local field formation due to surface plasmons and molecular response in molecular junctions.

Findings

Self-consistent treatment significantly affects transport characteristics.

Surface plasmon-polariton excitations influence local fields.

Realistic parameters demonstrate the importance of the approach.

Abstract

We consider a biased molecular junction subjected to external time-dependent electromagnetic field. We discuss local field formation due to both surface plasmon-polariton excitations in the contacts and the molecular response. Employing realistic parameters we demonstrate that such self-consistent treatment is crucial for proper description of the junction transport characteristics.