New peculiarity in the temperature and size dependence of electron-lattice energy exchange in metal nanoparticles

Petro Tomchuk, Yevgen Bilotsky

Published 2014-03-20Version 1

The work is dedicated to the development of the electron-lattice energy exchange theory in metal particles and it dependence of on particle size and electron temperature. We obtained the expressions for the constants of the electron-lattice energy exchange using the quantum-kinetic approach for infinite metal, and compared it with the result of classical kinetic approach. Both methods give the same result. But for the metal particles smaller than the mean free path of electrons, as we show, a quantum-kinetic approach (in its standard form) can not be applied, while the classical approach can be easily generalized to the particle of such sizes. We found a new peculiarity of the electron-lattice energy exchange - its temperature dependence around certain size - "magic size" of metal nanoparticles. Our calculation shown, that this changes of the electron-lattice energy exchange are associated with alteration of acoustic subzones which takes part in energy transfer. The change of the electron temperature can also lead to changes (around the "magic size") in the acoustic subzones, which are involved in energy transfer. As a result, constant of the electron-phonon interaction in nanoparticles can be either much higher or much lower than the corresponding constant for infinite metal.