Optical properties of a metal surface with a continuous electron-density profile

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
We develop a perturbative formalism for treating the optical properties of a diffuse metal surface, i.e., a surface where the electron density falls to zero in a continuous way. We have modified and generalized the work of Bagchi et al. by taking our "unperturbed" system to be the semiclassical infinite barrier model of the metal surface. Our theory includes, for the first time, both the excitation of longitudinal waves as well as the diffuseness of the surface in a rigorous way, and all previous theories follow from our work as limiting special cases. As an illustration of application of our formalism, numerical results are calculated for reflectance of an aluminum surface using a simple hydrodynamic model. Possible applications of our theory to related areas are discussed.