Figure 1. Hot carrier generation in Au and Ag.

(a) Schematic of a metal–dielectric interface under illumination, showing the decay of a SPP to a pair of hot electron and hole. The hot carriers are scattered and lose energy through phonon emission processes. The mean free path corresponds to the length of the black arrows, and the excited volume within the metal is shaded in grey. (b) The FM-JDOS of Au (left panel) and Ag (right panel) as a function of SPP energy, shown for several values of q_p along the Γ–L direction, up to a value of q_p=0.5 L. The SPP wavevector is expressed in units of the L point in the BZ, where L=(π/a)(1,1,1), with a the lattice constant. The FM-JDOS for photons and SPPs with vanishingly small wavevector corresponds to the q_p=0 case (curve labelled as Γ). The dashed lines indicate the value of the FM-JDOS low-energy tail for large wavevectors.