SPONTANEOUS EMISSION NEAR AN ABSORBING DIELECTRIC SURFACE

The lifetime of an excited atom near an absorbing dielectric surface i s calculated from an exact solution of a microscopic Hamiltonian model , which includes the effects of dispersion, local-field correction, an d near-field Coulomb interaction. Results for the total decay rate are shown to be in excellent agreement with those based on classical elec tromagnetic theory and to yield the well-known result for the rate of nonradiative energy transfer in the limit of very small distance from the surface.