Resonance energy transfer from a fluorescent dye molecule to plasmon and electron-hole excitations of a metal nanoparticle

We study the distance dependence of the rate of electronic excitation energy transfer from a dye molecule to a metal nanoparticle. Using the spherical jellium model, we evaluate the rates corresponding to the excitation of l = 1, 2, and 3 modes of the nanoparticle. Our calculation takes into account both the electron-hole pair and the plasmon excitations of the nanoparticle. The rate follows conventional R^-6 dependence at large distances while small deviations from this behavior are observed at shorter distances. Within the framework of the jellium model, it is not possible to attribute the experimentally observed d^-4 dependence of the rate to energy transfer to plasmons or e-h pair excitations.