First--principles calculation of the plasmon resonance and of the reflectance spectrum of Silver in the GW approximation

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that ab-initio GW calculations accurately predict the plasmon resonance and reflectance spectrum of Silver, resolving previous discrepancies and emphasizing the importance of self-energy effects for quantitative agreement with experiments.

Contribution

The study shows that including GW self-energy corrections is essential for accurately modeling Silver's plasmon and optical properties, improving upon previous DFT-based approaches.

Findings

GW calculations match experimental plasmon resonance positions

Reflectance minimum at 3.92 eV is accurately reproduced

Self-energy effects are crucial for quantitative agreement

Abstract

We show that the position and width of the plasmon resonance in Silver are correctly predicted by ab--initio calculations including self--energy effects within the GW approximation. Unlike in simple metals and semiconductors, quasiparticle corrections play a key role and are essential to obtain Electron Energy Loss in quantitative agreement with the experimental data. The sharp reflectance minimum at 3.92 eV, that cannot be reproduced within DFT--LDA, is also well described within GW.The present results solve two unsettled drawbacks of linear response calculations for Silver.