Plasmon-excitonic scattering of light from a nanoparticle located near a quantum well

A solution is presented for the problem of resonant elastic scattering of polarized light from a nanoparticle and a quantum well located near semiconductor surface. Coupling between surface plasmons of the metal particle and quasi-2D excitons of the quantum well is taken into account. The problem is solved by the Green’s functions technique treating the resonant polarization response of particle and quantum well in a self-consistent approximation. The effective polarizability is found for a metal nanoparticle of ellipsoidal shape with account of dynamical effect of “image” charges caused by semiconductor surface and quantum well. Spectra are numerically calculated for a model structure "metal–semiconductor– including a silver nanoparticle and a quantum well AlGaAs/GaAs. Appearance of exciton-plasmon interaction in the resonant scattering of light is interpreted as an enhancement by surface plasmons of the optical response due to quantum-well quasi-2D excitons.