Plasmon-generated hot carriers are currently being studied intensively for their role in enhancing the efficiency of photovoltaic and photocatalytic processes. Theoretical studies of the hot electrons subsystem have generated insight, but we show that a unified quantum-mechanical treatment of the plasmon and hot electrons reveals new physical phenomena. Instead of a unidirectional energy transfer process in Landau damping, back energy transfer is predicted in small metal nanoparticles (MNPs) within a model-Hamiltonian approach. As a result, the single Lorentzian plasmonic line shape is modulated by a multipeak structure, whose individual line width provides a direct way to probe the electronic dephasing. More importantly, the hot electron generation can be enhanced greatly by matching the incident energy to the peaks of the modulated line shape.

中文翻译：

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等离子线形的起源和增强的热电子在金属纳米粒子中的生成

目前正深入研究等离子体产生的热载体在提高光伏和光催化过程效率方面的作用。对热电子子系统的理论研究产生了见解，但我们表明，对等离激元和热电子的统一量子力学处理揭示了新的物理现象。代替Landau阻尼中的单向能量转移过程，可以在模型-哈密顿方法中预测小金属纳米颗粒（MNP）中的反向能量转移。结果，单一的洛伦兹等离激元线形由多峰结构调制，其单个线宽提供了探测电子相移的直接方法。更重要的是，通过使入射能量与调制线形的峰值相匹配，可以大大提高热电子的产生。