Recent advancement in the fabrication of metallic thin films allows for precise control of the surface crystallographic orientation and thickness, making them a great appeal in plasmonic devices. Considering such a crystalline quality and going towards smaller optical designs; surface, nonlocal, and quantum finite-size effects play a major role in metallic thin films when interacting with light. Here we explore various strategies to seek for the linear and nonlinear optical response manifested in multiple scenarios and configurations based on precise quantum-mechanical formalisms that describe the dynamics of electrons in such films, e.g., EELS, Feibelman d-parameters, periodic- and finite-systems, etc. We believe that our results can inspire future devices based on crystalline metal films as well as motivate further numerical implementation strategies.
|