Properties of Longitudinal Electromagnetic Oscillations in Metals and Their Excitation at Planar and Spherical Surfaces

The common definition of the spatially dispersive permittivity is revised. The response of the degenerate electron gas on an electric field satisfying the vector Helmholtz equation is found with a solution to the Boltzmann equation. The calculated longitudinal dielectric function coincides with that obtained by Klimontovich and Silin in 1952 and Lindhard in 1954. However, it depends on the square of the wavenumber, a parameter of the vector Helmholtz equation, but not the wave vector of a plane electromagnetic wave. This new concept simplifies simulation of the nonlocal effects, for example, with a generalized Lorents–Mie theory, since no Fourier transforms should be made. The Fresnel coefficients are generalized allowing for excitation of the longitudinal electromagnetic waves. To verify the theory, the extinction spectra for silver and gold nanometer-sized spheres are calculated. For these particles, the generalized Lorents–Mie theory gives the blue shift and broadening of the plasmon resonance which are in excellent agreement with experimental data. In addition, the nonlocal theory explains vanishing of the plasmon resonance observed for gold spheres with diameters less than or equal to 2 nm. The calculations using the Klimontovich-Silin-Lindhard and hydrodynamic dielectric functions for silver are found to give close results at photon energies from 3 to 4 eV. We show that the absolute values of the wavenumbers of the longitudinal waves in solids are much higher than those of the transverse waves.