Quantum Electron Plasma and Interaction of S-wave with Thin Metallic Film

TL;DR

This paper investigates how quantum properties of electrons influence the interaction of electromagnetic S-waves with thin metallic films, highlighting differences from classical models at infrared and terahertz frequencies.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical study of quantum electron plasma effects on electromagnetic wave interaction with nanoscale metallic films, comparing quantum and classical models.

Findings

Quantum wave properties significantly affect power coefficients at nanoscale.

Differences between quantum and classical models are prominent in infrared and terahertz ranges.

Quantum effects are detectable in thin films at specific frequencies.

Abstract

An interaction of electromagnetic S-wave with thin flat metallic film is numerically studied for the quantum degenerate electron plasma. One considers the reflectance, transmittance and absorptance power coefficients. A contribution of quantum wave properties of electrons to the power coefficients is shown in comparison of the coefficients with ones evaluated for both the classical spatial dispersion and the Drude - Lorentz approaches. This contribution is detected for the infrared and terahertz frequencies in case of nanoscale film width.