title: Drastic reduction of plasmon damping in gold nanorods.
abstract: The dephasing of particle plasmons is investigated using light-scattering spectroscopy on individual gold nanoparticles. We find a drastic reduction of the plasmon dephasing rate in nanorods as compared to small nanospheres due to a suppression of interband damping. The rods studied here also show very little radiation damping, due to their small volumes. These findings imply large local-field enhancement factors and relatively high light-scattering efficiencies, making metal nanorods extremely interesting for optical applications. Comparison with theory shows that pure dephasing and interface damping give negligible contributions to the total plasmon dephasing rate.
authors.affiliation: Photonics and Optoelectronics Group, Physics Department and CeNS, University of Munich, D-80799 München, Germany.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sönnichsen
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Franzl
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wilk
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: von Plessen
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Feldmann
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mulvaney