Electron-plasmon scattering

Metal nanoparticles have been intensively studied due to their potential for both fundamental and applied research. They give a possibility to examine the material properties in transient conditions between the bulk material and separated atoms. Some phenomena, such as surface plasmon resonance transitions, electron-electron or electron-phonon scattering have special character in metal nanoparticles. 

Electronic Raman scattering originates not only from free electron excitations, but also from collective electron excitations in the form of plasmons. So far, these two types of excitation have been observed only in conventional semiconductors and to some extent in high temperature superconductors, as discussed in subsections 4.8.4 and 4.8.5. However, doped polymers with not too high carrier concentrations or charge transfer systems are possible candidates, and the search for electronic Raman scattering in such systems is one of the challenges in this held. 

Plasmon scattering. The incident electrons lose energy by exciting collective oscillations (called plasmons) of the valence electrons. The energy loss is of the order of 15 eV, and plasmon loss peaks are prominent in the low-loss region of electron energy-loss spectra. 

Dynamics. Cluster dynamics constitutes a rich held, which focused on nuclear dynamics on the time scale of nuclear motion—for example, dissociahon dynamics [181], transihon state spectroscopy [177, 181, 182], and vibrahonal energy redistribuhon [182]. Recent developments pertained to cluster electron dynamics [183], which involved electron-hole coherence of Wannier excitons and exciton wavepacket dynamics in semiconductor clusters and quantum dots [183], ultrafast electron-surface scattering in metallic clusters [184], and the dissipahon of plasmons into compression nuclear modes in metal clusters [185]. Another interesting facet of electron dynamics focused on nanoplasma formation and response in extremely highly ionized molecular clusters coupled to an... 

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