Optical excitation of bulk plasmons in n-doped InAsSb thin films : investigating the second viscosity in electron gas

Abstract

We demonstrate that including the second viscosity of an electron gas in the hydrodynamic model allows for highly accurate modeling of the optical response of heavily doped semiconductors. In our setup, which improves resonance visibility compared to previous approaches, plasmon resonances become more distinct, allowing for a detailed analysis of the underlying physics. With advanced fitting techniques based on a physics-informed cost function and a tailored optimization algorithm, we obtain a close agreement between simulations and experimental data across different sample thicknesses. This enhanced resonance visibility, combined with our integrated approach, shows that key parameters such as doping level and effective electron mass, as well as the second viscosity of the electron gas, can be retrieved from a single optical measurement. The spatial dispersion taken into account in the hydrodynamic framework is essential for accurately describing the optical response of plasmonic materials in this frequency range and is likely to become a standard modeling approach.