Experimental determination of free-electron plasma damping rate in large sodium clusters
Abstract
We measure the intensities of light scattered by growing sodium clusters in a direction orthogonal to the direction of the incident light beam. We describe the determined degree of polarization of the scattered light with the Mie scattering theory for a sphere of arbitrarily large size and with the Drude dielectric function of a free-electron metal. Comparison of the theoretical and of the experimental degrees of polarization allows the mean damping rate of free-electron plasma in large sodium clusters with a radius of about 120 nm to be determined. This is found to be 0.50 ± 0.054 eV and it appears to be the first experimental determination of the damping rate in large sodium clusters.
- Publication:
-
Physics Letters A
- Pub Date:
- February 1997
- DOI:
- 10.1016/S0375-9601(97)00840-2
- Bibcode:
- 1997PhLA..236..543M