Surface plasmon on the metal nanosphere excitation by a quantum oscillator

TL;DR

This paper models surface plasmon interactions on a metal nanosphere using quantum electrodynamics, showing significant enhancement in spontaneous emission rates of quantum oscillators near the nanosphere.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum electrodynamics framework for surface plasmons on nanospheres and quantifies the Purcell effect in this context.

Findings

Purcell factor exceeds vacuum emission rates by several orders

Surface waves on nanospheres are described quantum mechanically

Enhanced spontaneous emission near nanospheres

Abstract

Surface waves on a metal nanosphere are described in terms of quantum electrodynamics. The interaction of surface waves with a quantum oscillator is discussed in the dipole approximation. The increase in the spontaneous emission rate of the excited quantum oscillator, the so called Purcell factor, is evaluated to exceed in several orders that of in vacuum.