Polovyi V. Modeling of plasmon-polariton propagation in stratified structures

The essence of the study of the propagation of plasmon-polariton waves in dielectric/metal/dielectric structures in this work is the sequential process of building a mathematical model, starting from the consideration of the metal layer as a 2D conducting system and the application of classical and quasi-classical conductivity models, which were not previously taken into account. This approach allowed us to show how and under what conditions the use of classical approaches is sufficient and what are their limits of application, and under what conditions it is necessary to complicate the mathematical model with effects that are important only for systems with a certain dimension. Showed that taking into account the spatial dispersion and the correct application of the electroneutrality condition for the approximation of independent electrons gives a significantly better agreement with the experiment and reveals a specific characteristic behavior of the frequency spectrum. The departure from the consideration of the electronic system as non-interacting, or rather, taking into account Coulomb correlations, gives the best agreement among all the models developed in this paper. The main practical achievement of the study is to establish the fact that for atomically thin metal films it is necessary to take into account the quantum nature of the behavior of electrons in metal and it allows to better understand the nature of the process and get better and quantitatively better results.