Theory of surface plasmons and surface-plasmon polaritons

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive theoretical overview of surface plasmons and surface-plasmon polaritons, detailing their types, underlying physics, and recent advances in understanding their properties and applications.

Contribution

It offers a detailed theoretical framework for the many-body electronic response at metal surfaces, including new predictions of acoustic surface plasmons.

Findings

Identification of various surface electronic excitations

Review of experimental and theoretical studies

Prediction of acoustic surface plasmons

Abstract

Collective electronic excitations at metal surfaces are well known to play a key role in a wide spectrum of science, ranging from physics and materials science to biology. Here we focus on a theoretical description of the many-body dynamical electronic response of solids, which underlines the existence of various collective electronic excitations at metal surfaces, such as the conventional surface plasmon, multipole plasmons, and the recently predicted acoustic surface plasmon. We also review existing calculations, experimental measurements, and applications.