CRC 1375/1: Light-Induced Electron Dynamics in and Around Metallic Nanostructures (SP A03)

Since optical near-field manipulation is mainly achieved by employing field enhancement around metallic tips and within nanogaps between metallic walls, the activities of this project are devoted to a precise theoretical description of light evolution within and around such plasmonic structures. Current, commonly used effective material models are known to fail when reaching atomic dimensions where quantum mechanical nonlocality comes into play. The theory to be developed in this project will go beyond classical schemes thus including quantum effects and optical nonlinearities of the Fermi fluid in metals. This supports experiments in projects B03|Szeghalmi/Tünnermann and B04|Nolte/Zeitner, which investigate light-induced electron tunneling and nonlin-ear optics in atomically thin metallic films. It also supports the projects C01|Huang/Popp and C02|Deckert/Pertsch which are dealing with extreme plasmonic field concentration.