Experimental measurement of acoustic plasmons in polycrystalline palladium

Abstract

An experimental study of collective oscillations in Pd covering the region of very low energy and momentum transfers is reported. Through Dynamic Electron Scattering spectroscopy, structure factor spectra were measured from 80 K to 298 K on a bulk polycrystalline Pd sample. Here we report the first experimental evidence of damped acoustic plasmons and their evolution to the single-particle excitation continuum. The acoustic plasmons follow a linear dispersion and are experimentally shown to be a separate and distinct resonance mode from acoustic surface plasmons. Calculations of the dielectric function employed a model that incorporates complete mixing of two conduction bands with contributions from both interband and intraband transitions. The model was used in computational studies that focused on specific experimental results to aid the characterization and understanding of the plasmon behavior. We found that the Pd acoustic plasmon energy matched the longitudinal phonon anomaly that has sparked numerous theoretical reports on the possible energetic coupling of these modes. Further experimental evidence of plasmon and phonon dynamical processes are found in the linewidth analysis of the data. The primary decay mechanism of the plasmons is interpreted to be strong phonon-assisted interband transitions. Further spectral features and the plasmon velocity are also reported.