Harnessing transformation optics for understanding electron energy loss and cathodoluminescence

TL;DR

This paper introduces a transformation optics-based method for accurately modeling electron energy loss spectroscopy and cathodoluminescence in complex metal nanoparticles, enhancing interpretation and guiding experiments.

Contribution

It presents a versatile, efficient approach using transformation optics to fully characterize EELS in complex nanoparticle geometries, addressing limitations of existing methods.

Findings

Accurate modeling of 2D and 3D nanoparticle dimers.

Derivation of frequency and time domain responses under electron beam excitation.

Enhanced understanding of plasmonic effects in complex structures.

Abstract

As the continual experimental advances made in Electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and cathodoluminescence (CL) open the door to practical exploitations of plasmonic effects in metal nanoparticles, there is an increasing need for precise interpretation and guidance of such experiments. Numerical simulations are available but lack physical insight, while traditional analytical approaches are rare and limited to studying specific, simple structures. Here, we propose a versatile and efficient method based on transformation optics which can fully characterize and model the EELS problems of nanoparticles of complex geometries. Detailed discussions are given on 2D and 3D nanoparticle dimers, where the frequency and time domain responses under electron beam excitations are derived.