The lifetime of localized surface plasmon plays an important role in many
aspects of plasmonics and its applications. In small metal nanostructures, the
dominant mechanism restricting plasmon lifetime is size-dependent Landau
damping. We performed quantum-mechanical calculations of Landau damping for the
bright surface plasmon mode in a metal nanoshell. In contrast to the
conventional model based on the electron surface scattering, we found that the
damping rate decreases as the nanoshell thickness is reduced. The origin of
this behavior is traced to the spatial distribution of plasmon local field
inside the metal shell. We also found that, due to interference of electron
scattering amplitudes from nanoshell's two metal surfaces, the damping rate
exhibits pronounced quantum beats with changing shell thickness.Comment: 9 pages, 4 Figure