Quantum hydrodynamic theory for plasmonics: Impact of the electron density tail

Multiscale plasmonic systems (e.g., extended metallic nanostructures with subnanometer inter-distances) play a key role in the development of next-generation nanophotonic devices. An accurate modeling of the optical interactions in these systems requires an accurate description of both quantum effects and far-field properties. Classical electromagnetism can only describe the latter, while time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) can provide a full first-principles quantum treatment. However, TD-DFT becomes computationally prohibitive for sizes that exceed few nanometers, which are instead very important for most applications. In this article, we introduce a method based on the quantum hydrodynamic theory (QHT) that includes nonlocal contributions of the kinetic energy and the correct asymptotic description of the electron density. We show that our QHT method can predict both plasmon energy and spill-out effects in metal nanoparticles in excellent agreement with TD-DFT predictions, thus allowing reliable and efficient calculations of both quantum and far-field properties in multiscale plasmonic systems.