Hydrodynamic effects on the energy transfer from dipoles to metal slab

TL;DR

This paper investigates how nonlocal hydrodynamic effects influence the energy transfer between dipoles and metal slabs, revealing new surface plasma wave modes and their impact on energy transfer rates, crucial for imaging applications.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive relation linking energy transfer to the slab's response function, explicitly evaluates it for hydrodynamic and local models, and uncovers new surface modes affecting energy transfer.

Findings

Nonlocal effects support higher-frequency surface plasma wave modes.

These modes significantly modify the energy transfer rate.

Results are relevant for metal-induced energy transfer imaging.

Abstract

A systematic study of nonlocal and size effects on the energy transfer of a dipole (e.g. a molecule or a quantum dot) induced by the proximity of a metal slab is presented. Nonlocal effects are accounted for using the hydrodynamic model (HDM). We derive a general relation that connects the energy transfer rate to the linear charge density-density response function of the slab. This function is explicitly evaluated for the HDM and the local Drude model. We show that a thin metal slab can support a series of higher-frequency surface plasma wave (SPW) modes in addition to the normal SPW modes thanks to the nonlocal effects. These modes markedly alter the response and the energy transfer process, as revealed in the structure of the energy transfer rate in the parameter space. Our findings are important for applications such as the recently developed metal-induced energy transfer imaging, which relies on accurate modeling of the energy transfer rate.