Numerical study of three-dimensional PIC for the surface plasmon excitation based on Drude model

TL;DR

This study uses three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations based on the Drude model to analyze surface plasmon excitation and propagation on noble metal films, validating results with theoretical predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a 3D PIC simulation framework incorporating the Drude model for noble metals to study surface plasmons, which is novel in this context.

Findings

Simulation results match theoretical surface plasmon frequencies.

Surface plasmon excitation and propagation properties are characterized.

Effect of metal film thickness on plasmon behavior is analyzed.

Abstract

This paper explores the time-domain equations of noble metals, in which Drude model is adopted to describe the dielectric constant, to implement three-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations for the surface plasmon excitation with the finite-difference time-domain method (FDTD). A three-dimensional model for an electron bunch movement near the metal film is constructed, and particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations are carried out with various metal films of different thicknesses. The frequency of surface plasmon obtained from PIC simulation is agreed with that from theory. Furthermore, the surface plasmon wave properties of excitation and propagation with the metal film is summarized by PIC results.