Transport of hot carriers in plasmonic nanostructures

Where do hot electrons and holes generated by plasmon decay in metallic nanostructures go? The precise evolution of carrier distributions in both space and energy critically determines their utility for hot carrier devices, but this has so far remained a challenge to predict theoretically. This work introduces a computational framework, NESSE (nonequilibrium scattering in space and energy) to predict spatially resolved energy distributions from first principles. NESSE quantitatively establishes the complex interplay between nanoscale geometry, electromagnetic field distributions, and material electronic structure in determining useful plasmonic hot carrier distributions.