UC Irvine

The interaction of optical fields sculpted on the nano-scale with matter may not be described by the dipole approximation since the fields vary appreciably across the molecular length scale. Rather than incrementally adding higher multipoles it is advantageous and more physically transparent to describe the optical process using non-local response functions that intrinsically include all multipoles. We present a semi-classical approach to the non-linear response functions based on the minimal coupling Hamiltonian. The first, second and third order non-local response functions are expressed in terms of correlation functions of the charge and the current densities. This approach is based on the gauge invariant current rather than the polarization, and on the vector potential rather than the electric and magnetic fields.