Hot carrier dynamics in a dispersionless plasmonic system

Abstract

Hot carrier dynamics in a broadband, dispersionless, plasmonic structure are studied using pump-probe measurements with 45 fs time resolution. The results obtained by simultaneous measurement of differential transmittance and reflectance show the influence of pump generated carriers on the probe generated plasmons. The dependence of decay time on the pump fluence is linear for the interband and intraband carrier excitation near the L-symmetry point in gold. However, 1.908 eV pump excitation, which allows both interband transition at the X-symmetry point and intraband excitation at the L-symmetry point, shows quadratic dependence of decay time on the pump fluence. Degenerate pump-probe measurements at 1.55 eV, which allow L-valley intraband excitations, highlight the difference in surface (reflection) and the bulk (transmission) mechanisms. Hot carrier relaxation time is in the 1–3 ps range for different excitation energies. Rise time, governed by the plasmon to hot carrier conversion and electron-electron scattering processes, is about 200 ± 35 fs for the hot carrier and hot plasmon excitation cases that increased to about 485 ± 35 fs when the pump is resonant with the interband transition at the X-symmetry point. Results show that the hot carrier dynamics are governed by the bulk metal band structure. The dipole matrix element for each of the transitions is estimated by density matrix calculations.